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LIBYSSA. 



washington, d. c: 

Printed for the Author by 

H. L. McQueen 

1898. 






By TraTJsfeT 
JUN 6 1907 



CONTExNTS. 



PAGE. 

Absolution 54 

Ape Author 121 

Apologia Patibuli ....... 52 

Arbiter ......... 147 

Backlog ......... 109 

Better World ....... 69 

Christianity in the Apostles . . . . . 6 

City of t^he Dead 110 

Cliff 'and Cataract 110 

Commencing Monk 75 

Competitive . . . . . . . .111 

Confidant 113 

Consecration 99 

Diocletian ........ 14 

Director ......... 75 

Dissembler . . . . . . . . 99 

Dog Conscious . . . . . . . .47 

Eclipse ......... 115 

Egypt 117 

Every Morning . . . . . . . 102 

Evolution ......... 44 

Family Picture 154 

Farmer's Borderland . . . . . .152 

Foreign Relations ...... 117 

Fulness of Days 151 

Going up Higher ....... 98 

Gold .118 

Grain Life 64 

Grasshopper's Last Word 119 

Guides 96 

Haunting of Olaf 18 



PAGE. 

Her Reclamation ....... 150 

Heredity ......... 120 

Job . 84 

Jungle ......... 101 

Leap and Limb ....... 121 

LiBYSSA . . . 1 

Lost Love ........ 148 

Maranatha . 95 

Mary 34 

Master and Slave . . . . . . .122 

Mission .122 

monstrum horrendum . . . . . . 123 

Morning and Afternoon ..... 41 

My Love 94 

Napoleon in Regeneration . . . . . 30 

Nepenthe ......... 67 

New Face . . 124 

New Friends ........ 125 

Office and Merit . . . . . . . 126 

On the Sand ........ 96 

Only a Shadow 92 

Painting . .70 

Passing of Poesy 127 

Pavilion . . 91 

Pentholatry ........ 128 

Permanence . . . . . . . . 102 

Pipe . . . 90 

Prospect from Gilboa ...... 4 

Pure to the Pure ...... 89 

Radical . . , 130 

Railway . 131 

Rape op Virtue . . . . . . . 133 

Regeneration . . .' . . . . 101 

Respects to Patrons Abroad 134 

Room . 88 

Saint . . .86 



PAGE. 

Saint Radulf ....... 59 

Search for the World 135 

Shadow Market 136 

Speech of Angels ....... 78 

Spy 137 

Sweet Heart ........ 103 

Tale of Loves ... . . . . . 155 

Tenant 82 

Tourist's Guide ....... 82 

Transient and Permanent . . . . .139 

Truant 139 

Unregarded ........ 81 

Warfare 140 

Where hast Thou been 105 

Wish 80 

Wolfe 27 

Work . . : 103 

Yesterday . . . 143 



NOTES 



Libyssa. The town in "Western Asia wliere Hannibal died ; evading the pur- 
suit of the Romans by taking poison from his ring, which is here supposed 
to be one selected fi'om the spoil of Cannee. 

Christianity in the Apostles. From Acts XV. The oldest of the four Gospels 
is assumed to be that of Mark. 

Haunting of Olaf. This legend has been treated by Longfellow, in his 
"Wraith of Odin," from the Saga of King Olaf, Tales of a Wayside Inn; 
a fact quite overlooked at the time of this composition. 

Wolfe. From the familiar account, of Wolfe reciting Gray's Elegy on the eve 
of his final attempt upon Quebec. " One hand there is " : Pitt. 

Absolution. Piraon, the Trier, or Prover of all things. 

Apologia Patibuli. Apology — that is. Defence, by itself — of the Gallows. 
Evolution, by an Evolutionist. So named and written a few months before 

the appearance of Tennyson's poem, " By an Evolutionist." 
Pentholatry. Worship of Sorrow. 

Shadow Market. Thus entitled, without knowledge of Miss Rossetti's " Gob- 
lin Market." 



HISTORY. 



LIBYSSA. 



Now let me try thy faith, 
Thou stamp and seal of faith, inviolate ring ; 
Make me but what I am, a bodiless wraith, 
To haunt and wander worlds, as all this age. 
No gem thy treasure, a more precious thing. 
Which more than fortress mocks the Italian rage, 

That girds me close as thou. 
Aye, closer ; withering age thy cincture slacks, 
Till the mid-finger scarce the clasp may feel ; 
Which but the sharper whets those fangs of steel. 
Thou only, of the three Cannsean sacks. 
For glory and for wealth remainst me now ; 
But not as that proud spoil, thy kindly grace : 
No sidelong malice can thy largess tax. 
No dull ingratitude thy lustre dim ; 
Those bushels measured me this world's brief space, 
Eternity is thine, dispenser grim ! 
Thy golden bosom has a balm to lend. 
Which lulls asleep these infant sobs and cares ; 

One nursing, and an end. 

Hark, here the squadron of the hated race. 

Already at the gate ? 
Scarce would faint Prusias other errand call ; 
That sceptred regent were no mark of theirs ; 
This hunted exile makes their earth too small. 
Let me look forth, on portal-yard and fate. 
— Yes, there the ensign I have lived to hate. 

And think they, that shall wave 

O'er Hannibal their slave? 
Whom they so oft have fled, to overtake? 
Their ancient fiend, their present gibe to make? 
Sun of our God, farewell ; fond earth, no more. 
Give me thy kiss, my spousal of the grave : 



Thus; — I have drained thy lips. 
Now, ere the creeping of the fell eclipse, 
How stands the parted world, the life I bore ? 
From dawn of youth to this relentless hour, 
They were my purpose, who attend me there; 
By them, with them, for them, was all my deed ; 
And here they dig my grave. Amen, dark Power ! 
Then was it hate, in which I burned and toiled, 
Till fable of the boyish oath has grown? 
About them as no lover hangs I hung ; 
Years parted not the embrace wherein we clung : 
I dressed me by the very arms I spoiled ; 
My phalanx tow'rd their legion stretched her square ; 
Their ways I pondered, more and more agreed. 
Their country was my country, theirs my home ; 
I was half Roman, ere I turned from Rome : 
I mourned not, rent from birth-land evermore, 
As when behind me sank the Apulian shore. 
— Witness, that bearing, as they file the street ! 
Earth has not such a port ; earth is their seat ; 
Libyssa, know thy master ! little need. — 

Oh, had they been my own ! 
Ah Carthage, Carthage, widow of the sea. 
Lost Tyre's lost daughter, what had I with thee? 
Thy pride and wildness were not for my care ; 
How vain I strove, by counsel and control. 
To make the servant as the mistress whole ! 
Smoke of thy children clouds thy sunken eye ; 
Thy very gods were scarce for me to praise : 
The Grace of Bel, that gave me name and aid, 
Now wavers to a dream, like all my days. 
For there is larger being ; I arrayed 
My lines against no fate, but God on high ; 

I knew not, as I know. 
Yet I his minister ; great Rome, and thine ! 
Who nurtured thee as I, and led thee forth ? 
What century built thy w^alls, Queen of the North, 
And ground thy arts, like those few years of mine ? 
Swift now thy step shall speed, that hath been slow ; 
Hereafter, if thine Alexander be. 
Scarce wilt thou owe that savior more than me. 
The vision, that o'erruled my aim so long. 
To league these mouldered states beneath my hand, • 



This Asia, Macedon, and mumbling Greece, 

My Italy, to sunset Spain, and Gaul, 

Against thy throne, in one liuge muster all. 

Shall be fulfilled ; by thee, and in thy peace. 

Eternal world shall rank us in its band. 

As countering orbs, of one concentric throng. 

Learn thou of me, discordant tribes to bind : 

Search in my army, how to guide mankind. 

But I had reared the frail against the strong ; 

There was my Zama ; the Numidian town 

But prostrate saw, what these were mining down. 

The purples of the long Bithynian bay. 
That broaden on Propontis, and the coast 
Where Ilion was, now thicken ; all grows dun : 
Cloud? for the eve w^ould glow them ; holy Sun 
Is pure aloft, and yet he pales his ray. 
In me the cloud is gathering ; faithful draft, 

Welcome, and Roman host ! 
Why go not forth, and greet them as old friend ? 
Not that my goings are no more, but they 
Would little understand my new-found way, 
And think, but one more snare of that old craft. 
Best death in line of Life ; the crown the end. 
— Knock ; ye shall find me as ye would, and I; 
At last for once at one, our war forever die. 



PROSPECT FROM GILBOA. 

Brother Saul, receive thy sight. 

Blessing, my God : one shaft can sink ; fountain of life, break out ; 
Hail to the tide, eager and warm, purpling my edge about ! 
Strength have I none to draw the blade, not for a groan have breath ; 
Sweet is it long, to fly from life; but the infinite sweetness of death ! 

Over my brain, jarring till now, mantles a cloud of balm ; 
Spirit and nerve, raging and racked, melt in a rising psalm. 
Music, even as David's harp, comes wandering past my sense ; 
And not so thick has the cloud o'erdrawn, that it veils Omnipotence. 

Fate, who had griped, fast on her wheel, purpose and limb so long, 
Urging athwart, looses at last, yields to a Fate more strong ; 
Throne that had chained, crown that had burned, pass to the destined hand ; 
Joy, that my own sweet Jonathan lies, unbound of the searing band ! 

Thanks for the stream of his gracious blood ; Gilboa, thy name is peace ; 
Thanks for the two, there by him fallen ; with me the doom shall cease. 
Pang of the sword, parting the soul, I lean to it, clasp it fast ; 
The God who hath scourged me all the years is merciful at the last. 

Passion and hate, struggle and fear, slip from me down as loads ; 
Rises my heart, widens my sight, all searches and all forebodes. 
Where I was galled, there have I gained ; where I have smitten, I taught; 
moment of holy rest, abide, till thou hast fulfilled my thought ! 

Samuel, terror of all my days, hence with thy thunder now ! 
All my voyage, tempest or calm, only my rock wert thou.^ 
Haunting my anguish yesternight, thy spirit presaged this hour ; 
But gave not omen, that on its wing I should pass beyond thy power. 

Jahveh was thine. Dread of the Jew, drinking the captive's blood ; 
Never a light of the Father-smile, of the kindly brotherhood. 
Whom War had spared, thy knife could rend, proclaimer of law Divine ! 
Avenger of our idolatries, what idol was grim as thine ? 



Out from the tribes, Israel all, me thou hadst chosen alone, 
Me to be king, thou wert to reign, only the toil my own. 
One step mine, the All-Wise and Good repented, his act reviled ; 
Well done, prophet, on God to lay thy errors and changes wild ! 

Stark was thy hand, bony and cold, laid on my heart last eve ; 
May it be true, as the nations dream, that spirits their earth-bond leave? 
Comfort and healing yet there breathes, on that very blast of dread : 
God and His right would find their space, in the living and in the dead ! 

Far from me here. Spectre, thy bode ; nought but the tender care 

Folds me about, of the simple souls, who soothed my misery there. 

They the reject, they gave me rest, the fatted calf they brought ; 

Time will be yet, when in deeds like these, shall the Way be rather taught! 

Lord of the world, long had I sought, even to that fell night. 
Word of Thy mind, wave of Thy hand, token of guiding light ; 
Dead in my ways, ghostly my search ; oracles old were dumb ; 
Now in no Urim, prophet or dream, in Thy Kingdom art Thou come. 

David beloved, strange and a dream now is my vengeful chase ! 
Thine was the realm, surely I knew, yet my annointed place ; 
There was the rift, madness was there ; in my rage as true to thee, 
As thou in thy valor and changeless faith wert all thy days to me. 

Enter thy way, hero and sire ; arise, and thy old lord fall ; 

Earth will renown David the King, and darken the page of Saul. 

Worthier thou, noble my son, shalt measure, and roll thy tear; 

And sad and sweet in thy song shall sound the name of our mountain bier. 

Not of the lost, the downward souls, in the world or evermore, 
Am I, who offered myself each day, loved country, and taskwork bore. [past. 
Huge limbs, once mighty, high heart once proud, how little your greatness 
To the joy of love, to the peace of God, to the light that leads at last. 



CHRISTIANITY IN THE APOSTLES. 

PAUL, MARK AND BARNABAS. 
MARK. 

Joy, mighty heralds of our Father's love, 
Whom Gentiles crowned for Mercury and Jove ; 
How then shall we, who know the purer way. 
Do to your greatness honor more than they ? 
How has your healing message unperplexed 
The souls of brethern here, prescription-vexed ; 
In this and all things, at the needful hour, 
God's holy part ye act, of peace with power. 
And now yet greater things arise, I wot ; 
For greatest once achieved, suffice you not ; 
On what new empire does your conquest bend ? 
May humble Mark your minist'ring attend ? 
Aid I may lend you, aiding more than you : 
If in memorial I your work renew. 

BARNABAS. 

Rejoice, kind nephew ; would thy praise were less. 
Or that it sought the one sole Worthiness ; 
But well thy heart is with us, and with God ; 
And prayer indeed is ours, that all we have trod 
Was but a step to larger : we again 
Are minded to survey, by land and main. 
All grounds we planted with the holy seed. 
For often, son of mine, is greater need 

To water and to weed, 
Than toil first earing ; none perchance oppose, 
Where curious newness tends what fervor sows ; 
But where the storm has tramped, or frost has chilled, 
There to renew the harvest unfulfilled. 
Asks, not the martyr of one hour alone, 
But crow^n of patience over wisdom's throne. 
Such task, my sister's child, wouldst thou essay? 



MARK. 



What gladness, my father, to repay 

Thy care and leading, with my last of breath ! 

Surely I march beside ye, to the death. 



PAUL. 

Not so, fair friends ; what swiftness, with what ease ! 
We choose our vessel, for tempestuous seas; 
This hath been tried, and found not ocean-proof; 
The morning waved him near, the noon aloof. 

Alas, if words of zeal 
Could spike the purpose, and the spirit steel, 
Who more than Mark would be companion true ? 
But while Pamphylia slopes upon the blue, 
We must remember, loudest bursts are brief. 

MARK. 

Nay but, our pillar and our glorious chief! 

Didst thou but pause to learn, what drew me thence? 

PAUL. 

No, and I need not; spare the fond pretence. 
Thy Lord had called thee, and his work was there; 
Nor weak nor mighty were all other care, 
But nothing, if thy heart were on His way; 
The world had found thee, and thou saidst us nay. 
Back from that plow who turns his lustful head, 
No more be follower where the Cross has led. 
I doom thee not, I blame not; thou mayst find 
Thy own way heavenward, for our Lord is kind : 
But walk no more with me. 



BARNABAS. 

brother, fearful Paul! one breathing yet; 

Think, how we lean on thee! 
Can all man's life not pay one moment's debt? 
Think how he served thee, like a page his lord; 

Our Master how adored ! 



He left us, clogged in health, and fearing still 
The cumbrance of our progress by his ill ; 
He sought the council of Jerusalem, 

Abler to serve by them ; 
I know my nephew, son in very love; 
He will be faithful, as the skies above. 

PAUL. 

He will be what he is; an April sky. 

Receive him those he abler served, not I. 

I marked his illness; were he sick indeed, 

One touch of Christ had turned it all to speed ; 

But all uncertain where his treasure lay. 

His heart forsook us on our midmost way. 

Let spring the reed, and waver at its rill. 

For me the oak that shadows vale and hill. 

He stared, when Elymas before me sank; 

But scantly of our living fountain drank. 

When this poor youth shall catch in turn the pen 

To register the Life that bled for men. 

But wonder-acts his annals will indite; 

Nought shall he grasp of inward truth and light. 

BARNABAS. 

Yet naming Christ, let once his image rise! 
Would he the wanderer turning home despise? 
Saul, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou? 
Where is the Love to one another, now? 
Was not the soul of all his dearest lore. 
Thy brother mending, know his fault no more? 
— My child may go with us? 

PAUL. 

Nor thou nor he. 
To other fold, and other pasture ye. 
This is no mending, in the same wild sway 
Of tumbling mood to wander or to stay. 
Where is repentance, if he made no fault? 
Where is it, if he did? Thy reasons halt; 

And thou art fit with him. 
Well might our Lord in all his strength be sweet; 
He could upraise the suppliant at his feet : 



think not, brethren, that my heart is grim! 
Only its weakness goads me to my task; 
How in your sunshine would I gladly bask, 
And make apostles with a generous word! 
Another stutf the building of the Lord 
Must lay foundation, and erection lift; 
Storm, fire and water must the fabric sift, 
And all the age these crumbling worlds endure, 

Approve the mansion pure. 
Men on that course shall grow to set at nought 
The bond of Nature and the dream of thought; 
All but as dust beside the eternal gold. 
And I were traitor, if in carnal mould 

I poured the Spirit's tide. 
Ye love, but not enough; ye dare and strive, 
Not to the end ; henceforth our steps divide. 
How could I rest in vales of earthly peace! 
But earth's last labor yields me not release. 
God must be all or nothing. Go, and live. 

MARK. 

Gone, and the whole great memory with him gone? 
father, what is this? 

BARNABAS. 

Deplore not, son ; 
For he is of the sea, and mountain fire, 
Whose course, for weal or bale, none may retire. 
Sore has the link been straining; let it part; 
New comrades he will find; heal thou my heart. 

MARK. 

And true thou sayst; when we were bound with him, 
Following like child-steps by a giant limb, — 
How the remembrance o'er me swells this hour! — 
Oft was I tortured in my stretching power. 
On his demand, insatiate as the sea. 
He seemed to burn me, a relentless flame, 
Unwearying, sleepless, evermore the same. 
Yea, let him pass, for me. 



10 



BAENABAS. 



But not his track; for passing great was he. 
The Taurus, that no firmer stood, shall sink, 
Ere he of Tarsus from the record shrink. 

Paul, I loved thee! none but such a mould, 
So vast and tender-gleaming, sage and bold, 
Such youth celestial, with such counsel old. 

Could light this earthless glow! 
Was all our vineyard labor, pain and bliss. 
Our spirit wedlock, to no end but this? 

Had it been mine to go ! 
Friend, guardian, brother, mightier soul of mine, 

0, thou hast cleft this heart! 
My life, one weaving, lies in sunder torn. 

I pray my God, such woe, 
Companion of all good, be never thine! 
This anguish in thy bosom root no thorn. 
That thou shall but implore, it may depart! — 
Now let us find, what service lies before. 

MARK. 

1 go with thee. I think, the Cyprus shore, 

Thy pleasant home of old. 
Were happy mooring, after such a blast; 
There may we search our lambs, and fence them fast. 
But I aspire indeed another fold : 
When I have given thee comfort as I may, 
A calling waits, which knows not yea and nay. 
These jars and rending to the birth have brought 
My seed of peace, whose growth will make them nought. 
Long have I felt it rising ; there is none 

Who that high task has done: 
To stamp the record of the Blessed One, 
That those who saw not may believe and know. 
Many have noted word or act; but so, 
The shape divine appeared not in its might; 
Those beams I gather to one orb of light; 
The life and action I enroll throughout. 
That waked immortal love, and vanquished doubt; 
Till, God to favor, at the ends of earth. 
Far off as Egypt and the Arabian dearth, 



11 

Yes, even to Rome and all her sunset bound, 
The breathing presence of our Lord be found ! 
And such the worth my hallowed theme would give, 
A hundred years my artless page might live, 
A hundred years if sentenced earth survive. 
Could heavenly tidings of more gladness be, 
Than all mankind to glory him as we? 
Can mighty Paul do more? 

BARNABAS. 

Son of my vows, 
If this be shown thee, and thy God allows, 
Take heart undoubting, and the work pursue. 
Only be watchful, what thy hand shall do! 
Let not the marvel so enwrap thy mind, 
That rays of yet more glory leave thee blind. 
The Word, the accent of divinest law. 
Beyond the feats we rather heard than saw. 
Be chosen matter; less it awes the sense, 
But larger in the Spirit's consequence. 
I will dispense thee of this holy store; 
Then cleave to Simon, and provide thee more. 

MARK. 

I heed thee well, dear uncle; yet I deem. 

We hold as moving and as rare a theme 

Of those high miracles, where Love again 

Came down from Heaven for once to dwell with men, 

Vouched by all witness Truth itself would seek, 

As there, where seemed the very God to speak. 

But who can all sufHce? 
Be sure I asked in prayer, not once or twice. 
And found the blessing, or I sank dismayed. 
But more will follow on the path once laid. 
Till Jesus in his fulness rising stand, 
Joy of the Heavens, and light of every land ! 
A new Creation, of a world more bright, 
New Resurrection, of more lasting light. 
Rapt in that fulness, I have all in all; 
I bear no branding from the scourge of Paul. 
Strange he should claim, and we the claim accord, 
Above all others, that he saw the Lord I 



12 

Apostle only, who did never see; 

For had he seen him, something meeker he. 

Thou couldst not boast, and shame him to his face; 

But what was he, to shake thee from thy place? 

While yet that boy with scorners held the seat. 

Who laid his all before the Apostles' feet? 

Who first avouched him to the sainted board, 

When all eschewed him, like a thing abhorred? 

Who made him prophet and evangelist. 

When Antioch named us by the name of Christ? 

Who broke the ancient fetter, and led on, 

In this last verdict as in time foregone? 

What sky-like soul reared first that arching plan, 

Of Christian message to the race of man? 

Who sought him out for Greek as well as Jew, 

Whence "of the Gentiles" his ascription grew? 

Who shared his voyage like the mother bird. 

And bore the buffet, while he spent the word? 

Who ever bore, harder than volleyed stone, 

Devouring pride and mastery of his own? 

Let his oblivion all the record pass. 

But earth one day shall answer, Barnabas! 

BARNABAS. 

Hush, fervid youth! of all things first be true; 
None thus could measure awful Paul, that knew. 
Beyond that soul, in piteous weakness mured, 
No lion dared nor adamant endured; 
To suffering swifter and to toil than speech — 
Let raging Lystra and Iconium teach — 
All-succoring, constant as the stars and sun. 
Wide in the lore, of world and Scripture won, 
Such depth all-searching, such authentic light, 
Borne from on high to pierce the heart of Night, 
So huge in daring and in thought so keen. 
Nor Jew nor Gentile have these ages seen. 
And though the very name of Christ assuaged 
The tides of passion that within thee raged, 
111 hast thou learned the lesson of his love, 
His glorious thrall thus blindly to reprove. 

Master, Master, wert thou here once more! 
The fire of Saul would pale, thy light before, 
As dogstar at the day. 



13 

The dreadful sweep of his dividing sword 

Were duhiess, in thy word. 
And we, the silliest who adore thy ra}^ 
Unshamed by thee would stand, who cower at him. 
may there lie, beyond our mazes dim, 
A land, a time, where Christ indeed may reign! 
Let the great buildings of our Paul remain. 
The storms of earth will need them; but there stands. 
Far o'er his creed and law, not made with hands, 
Eternal in the heavens, a home for all; 
Thus with thy word 1 leave thee, noble Paul! 
for the world, where parting is no more! 
There shall no walls of thouglit, close hearts divide; 
God speed when earth may cast the bond aside! 
Now to our task along the Cyprian shore. 
No sound of murmur; ere this life be done, 
My heart betides me, Ave shall yet be one. 



W 



14 



DIOCLETIAN. 

What would the priest? I weary Of his tales; 

I bid my offering to the eternal gods, 

Triumphant over earth's extremest odds, 
And he must fret me that some entrail fails ? 
Not of his shallow arts my fortune flows; 
The witness of my life be far apart from those. 

The changeless favor of the thrones above 

On me has rested, not as other men; 

Or if not theirs, I am the master then ; 
For none did victory such as mine approve. 
Flat on the very soil my course began ; 
And through all spaces cleared the loftiest bound of man. 

Arms were my round, mechanic soldier first, 
Then champion, captain, and commander wide: 
So bowed the empire to my lifting tide, 

And I was at the culm of best or worst. 

Vespasian, Antonine, or Caesar now 
With level glance encount'ring, fronted brow to brow. 

Then how the nations raged against their bond ! 
The rude Illyrian could but be their scorn : 
From shores of sunset and from lands of morn, 

From Nubian plain, from Danube and beyond, 

From deep within the bowels of the realm, 
Boiled up the Avernian floods; I kept the mastering helm. 

Ev'n that waste isle, that nurtures nought of worth, 
But grimness of despair, and spoil of woods. 
That Arctic outland, where no commerce broods, 
That Britain, parted from the orb of earth, 
Ev'n there our eagle, when defiance ramped. 
At length spread wings, and o'er the conquered lair encamped. 



15 

Yet did not this my statelier measure fill; 
The reel of tyrants, dupes and sages, whirled 
Through seventy lustra of our Roman world. 

Attained not any to the stature still ; 

What foremost Julius only might have thought. 
Now by this hand behold in calm completeness wrought. 

For no true empire, all these ages yet. 
So rocked and rolled its unprovided way; 
But shreds of old apj)ointment stretched astray. 

Toiled, where the novel with the ancient met; 

Division, of decay and not of form. 
Wore the huge vessel wide, besieged with many a storm. 

And I alone this anarchy have tamed; 

Have reared high Rome to all her health of old, 
With all the realm her power hath since enrolled, 

All in one order marshalled and enframed, 

By governed organ, in each fair degree. 
Each on its higher leaned, and all the height on me. 

Now is there nought, that dream itself would crave; 
The world our vassal, wide as wish can rove. 
Or strength can fashion; who an arm will move? 

Vain Alexander might our legions brave; 

The Northern hordes have menaced, but are meek; 
None reached this mark, Assyrian, Mede, Egyptian, Greek. 

Is that same noon the morning of decline ? 

Ev'n as the wise have parabled and penned. 

Perfect is finished, finishing is end? 
Why not my fabric, like the heavens divine. 
Like them immortal? Something sounds recall; 
The sun that climbed so far, by that same arc must fall. 

What stubborn treasons hath my progress laid ! 

Outward and inward, what opposers bent! 

They who upheld the antique precedent. 
They who but shrank, reluctant, and afraid ; 
All that was old, I vanquished; is there new. 
That dare affront the power to w^hich all earth was true ? 



16 

One thorn of rebeldom I have assailed, 

And but the sharper hath its piercing grown ; 
One stock uptorn, one baleful harvest mown, 

And only wider has the seed prevailed. 

I was the new, that overpowered the old; 
Still must there follow newer, heir to all my gold ? 

Two hundred years and more, the godless pest 

Has branched and rooted in the ground of Rome ; 
All outcast lewdness there can find a home. 

No vulture of the wilds, but there may nest. 

My guideless fathers could not clasp the yoke ; 
One reef alone, whereon my baffled tides have broke. 

In stormy effort, once and still again. 

Prince after prince awaked our law to quell 
The ominous brood that crouched and never fell ; 

These were but parts of power, urged forth in vain ; 

Till now Galerius, and vast Rome throughout. 
Rose in one monster throe — and reaped us nought but doubt. 

Some Judian sawyer gave them rise and name. 
In times that bore the Roman purple new ; 
This I revile not, I myself upgrew 

From dust as lowly, to this crown of fame ; 

But where his valor, that his work should live ? 
What during stamp on man, from that poor fugitive? 

They wear a mail, that never sword was ground. 
Nor whetted lance, to enter ; war may roar. 
And I have chains for all its wrath, and more ; 

But unresistance, what assault can wound ? 

Peace, who can vanquish? patience, what control? 
New madness have they found, these warriors of the soul ! 

Yet, now say many, what if these were true? 

Their shadowy God, the living? and their Christ 
Right Son and leader ? have they not sufficed 

The very witness, all their furnace through ? 

Such thought might aid to shake me from my throne ; 
Not change the faith of old, wherein my deeds were done. 



17 

Ah, give me back the splendor of my years, 

When toil and danger would but rouse my heart ; 
How would I joy to rend these knots apart ! 

But I have touched the coast of doubts and fears ; 

More lovely now Dalmatian gardens seem, 
Than all the pomp of worlds, relapsing to a dream. 

If that were all ! Men are not as they were ; 

The Roman stands not in his thews of yore. 

Clay to my hand, it knows their clay the more ; 
On this high crest, their dizzying senses err. 
I feel a shadow lurking on afar ; 
Gods, will ye print such figure, but the seal to mar ? 

Yet darker: gods yourselves — how shall I say: 
Your altars comfort not these latter men ? 
Your temples beam not on our soul as then ? 

The wise forego you, nor the fools obey. 

My earth stands fast, why should my welkin swim? 
Ye shine not as ye did? or grow mine eyes but dim? 

I feel the steps of time ; all is not mine : 
The task I set before me, I have done. 
That war is over, since the field is won ; 

With thee I leave the Cross, my Constantine; 

Somewhat a following sceptre must remain ; 
Here will I shift the watch, and my sweet soil regain. 



W 



18 



THE HAUNTING OF OLAF. 

I. 

On the stormy Ogvald, 

Sat King Olaf ; 

All Norway over, 

Now his vassals numbered. 

Not as old-world conquerors, 
Olaf came to conquer: 
He, all sea-kings humbling, 
His own spirit humbled; 
On his year-long tossing, 
Took the yoke of Christ. 
Not then as after. 
All acclaimed the christening; 
Not in skyward building. 
Bishop sleek and balmy. 
Not with fattening friar, 
Fared the lonely Truth; 
O'er the barren Northland, 
By her brave apostles, 
Grim in heathen grapple, 
Glad with heavenly brightness, 
Shone in rising glor}^ 
Rays of Galilee. 
Peace was on her pathway. 
In her walk was pureness. 
Faith and Hope her following. 
Kindness filled her hand. 
These the wild-heart Olaf 
Yet had will to welcome; 
And his rugged forehead 
Smoothed its frown to smiling, 
As the bounteous father 
Bears with headlong boyhood. 
Spurning home in uproar. 
Sporting wild and guideless. 
Garb and girl despising; 



19 



When the brand of Freya 
That rude breast has dinted, 
One among the soft ones 
Waked not scorn but longing, 
How his brawling drops; 
How the bud and blossom 
Of Manner blows upon him; 
And in this new mildness, 
Manhood first has dawned; 
Such the Spring of Norway, 
When that Sun had searched her; 
So unarmored Olaf 
Eyed his forward people, 
Watched their works, unfolding. 
Heal the wounds of war. 

Not ravage only, 

Ruled now the rovers; 

Far shores they wandered, 

Widened the West. 



II. 

But now alone on the Ogvald cliff. 

Sat Olaf, between the land and sea; 
Of plodding harrow and tripping skiff, 
Carl, fisher and viking, lord was he. 

Evening had touched the wave; 
Earth-looks were settling grave. 

And not all rest was the royal soul; 

Impatient whiles with the canting folk, 
His ocean being would surge and roll. 

As a new-led captive will strain the yoke. 
Then, o'er his realm of old. 
Brooded he, uncontrolled. 

Out of the stealing ocean-mist. 

Out of the breeze that the crag cut sharp, 
Out of the gloom where the strath lay whist; 
A Shape drew near on the fiorded scarp. 
Long, it aroused him not; 
Once marked, no more forgot. 



20 

Dread stranger, yet as the form best known, 

In oak-moss beard and in wave-weed hair ; 
Blue cap and mantle, as wings outflown; 

Strangest the eye, with the shrouded glare. 
Eye, not eyes, he bore; 
World could abide no more. 

On either shoulder the Raven stood, 

The Wolf at each foot was marching dumb. 
Went scarce a tremor through Olaf s blood. 
That back from exile was Odin come. 
Greeting there passed not yet; 
Too close the spirits met. 

With no rebuke, nor a mute reproach. 

The tall Controller by Olaf sat; 
He braided not, how new lords encroach; 
If altars tumbled, he wist not that ; 
Only of times afar 
Breathed he, their wilds and war. 

Of gods in the high Valhalla, 

Of infinite Ygdrasil, 
Of Norn, of Edda and Vala, 

Who speer of the silent Will; 
Of its work in the gray world-morning. 

Of NifFel and Muspelheim, 
Of Ymir, and gap Ginnunga, 
That parted the fire and rime ; 
Of Dainn and Dvalin, 
Of Goinn and Moinn, 
Of Huginn and Muninn, 

Of Buri and Bor; 
Of Baldur and Bragi, 
Of Himinn and Hela, 
Of Vilya and Vea, 

Of Vidar and Thor ; 
The gods in their brightness, 

The giants of yore ; 
Of Askur and Embla, 

The ash and the elm. 
That grew the mortals 
Of Midgard realm ; 



21 

The prime creation 

OfThraeland Karl, 
To the generation 

Of Thegn and Jarl ; 
The mighty Saga, 

That ancients tell. 
The down most fountain 

Of Mimir's well. 

King Olaf hearkened without one word ; 
The waves of his turbid spirit sank ; 
But they fell to a tide which vastlier stirred, 
Than fuming surges that beat the bank. 
Gone was the Orient light; 
Round him, All-Father's might. 

The tale swept on, to the midmost watch 

Of the soft unmurmuring Easter night. 
Now hall or hovel should set the latch; 

The King? aisle, chamber, they peer in fright. 
Bishop his hauntings knew; 
Groped out the seaward view. 

No sound but the bump of the wave below; 
No form that guested the lonely King. 
"Sleep must have stolen him, hours ago," 
He thought; but nearer, another thing: 
Wild-wide the dreadful eyes; 
Madness had such a guise. 

Of fear, of chiding, of pleaful awe. 

Made up the Bishop a voice at last : 
"Come, rise, lawgiver, know thy law; 
Far is the bound of thy folding past." 
Olaf unsisting turned; 
Rule, he had never spurned. 

He looked once more on the Asgard shape, 

Sore loth to break the enchanted strain; 
But, wrapped in azure of drifting cape. 

It vouched not if god or if ghost remain. 
Like one whose joints had slept, 
Home with his priest he crept. 



22 



III. 



There I know not the rest or the dreams that the monarch awaited ; 

Only the morning found, in the newness of olden years. 
Now was the Cross a dream, that in rousing summons abated; 
Nought was love but the holm, the dragon prow and the spears. 

Darting of Berserkir ire 
Tingled throughout him in fire; 
Knives half rusted an age he grasped, and by three and by four, 
Kept them twirling at once in air, as he used of yore. 

Bishop had sought his door, for the office of matin devotion ; 

Ghasted the figure he met, forth clanking in armor and sword. 
"What, has rebel uproared thy land, or foeman thy ocean? 
Even so let us first ask favor and help of the Lord." 

Stormily Olaf replied, 
"Hence with your sycophant pride! 
I have been crawling and mouthing your old wives' tales to my fill; 
Now am I man again, and minister Odin's will." 

"God!" said the rueful pope, "has the Enemy griped thee forever? 

All thy Gospel a gleam, thy Savior mocked and betrayed? 
Think of thy growth in his grace, good work, and our holy endeavor;" — 
Swept the king from his side, and the patriarch sore disma3^ed. 
f Soon by the Queen he stood, 

Thyra, the fair and good: 
"What are these arms, my liege? for battle, or game?" she asked; 
Knowing of old his joy, where strength and where skill were tasked. 

Olaf was giant-willed, and in rage unsparing as demon; 

Yet at its outmost flood there was bank of ruth for his Queen. 
"I must awhile be gone, be soldier awhile, and seaman; 

Old feuds burn, ere the coast be safe, and the clime serene," 

Smoothing his passage he said; 
Thyra, in shadowing dread. 
Paused him no more, nor questioned, but gazed like a charm-drawn bird, 
Weeting of change unspoken, and hearkening more than the word. 

Forth to his lords he strode, to the scantly regenerate vikings; 

"Friends, we are coursing a game," he spoke, "too far in the air. 
Men of the East cannot rule the man of the North to their likings; 
Thor and Odin are ours, their own may they keep with them there. 

Out with the drivelling priests; 
Back to our fights and our feasts; 
Mine is the blame, who have forced your fashion so long astray ; 
Thought it were all for good ; let us now to our homeborn way." 



23 

Often the peal of the trump those barons had heard on their charges, 

Firing the hardy nerve to deeds of valor and fame ; 
Never an eagerer blast the importunate spirit enlarges, 

Than in the call of their king, rebuilding their ancient frame. 

" Round to tlie gospellers go ; 
Lay their new infamies low ! " 
First they would hurl the Cross from its guard of the palace door; 
Save that a voice forewarned, it had once been hammer of Thor. 

Such indeed was the lot, some wise, of the land's conversion ; 
Sager spirits liad wrought, on likenesses rather than odds. 
Glory they cast on the new, and not on the old aspersion ; 
Godliead itself destroying not all, but fulfilling the gods. 

So in his mellow^er mood, 
Olaf liad compassed his good ; 
Now it was no black magic that wrested his heart in a beat, 
Only a lapsing hour where neighboring faiths might greet. 

Yet, and of high degree, in the band of those hard-reined vassals. 

Some there were, who had clasped the truth of the Christ more deep; 
Parted once and for all with bloodstone, ravage and wassails. 
Known to the kingdom of peace, and minded its rule to keep. 

These, in alarm and repair. 
Stole from the renegades there, 
Silent in action as spies, with a whisper of signal to each, 
Drew to the chapel aside, wdiere the Bishop might counsel teach. 

Soon their plotting was known to the King, as he mused of his courses; 

Hardly may deed of the realm the stoop of that glance evade. 
Straightway rose on its beach the tide of his purpose and forces ; 
Never another bar on his spirit oppugnancy laid. 

Fierce on their conclave he broke: 
" Slaves, are ye bursting my yoke ? 
Scatter your idle files, or learn at your life-blood cost, 
Whether Lord Odin yield to your bannerless chanting host." 

On like a cloud of wrath he drove, not deigning their reason ; 

Back on themselves they sank, none zealous for reason's sake. 
Not in the power of the Cross, wild will, nor darkness of treason, 
Lived there the man w^ho dared the rage of Olaf awake. 

Onward and outward he passed ; 
Cordial the maelstrom blast; 
Next he bethought him to league, by their ancient standard, his thanes, 
Lording and thrall, who of old had swept with him seas and plains. 



24 

Not in the fury alone of bloodthirst waged he the banning; 

Broils of the past new-rose, old schemes of enlarging power. 
Danes to be mastered were there, grim isles his vengeance were fanning; 
Sigrid, the proud Swede queen, yet waited the auditing hour. 

Such in their embers had lain, 
Smothered, and smouldering vain, 
Under the ash of his Christian penance and meekness long : 
Blazing aloft in one, they should right him the years of wrong. 

One, of the lowly born, he approached alone at his cottage; 

Bondi, his herdman and friend, knit fast with his heart by worth. 
Olaf would leave the throne, to share of his thatch and his pottage; 
Peaceful now as his lambs, one-grown with the bountiful Earth, 

Lion of valor in strife, 
Olaf had thanked him for life, 
Once when his Jarls, beat back, had uncovered his side to the sword, 
Faithful and mighty the slave, hewn, mangled, had shielded his lord. 

Never such truth forgetting, the Chief made speed to his dwelling; 

Master of sheep on master of men looked forth of his fold. 
Rose his dame from within at the voice, no need of his telling; 
Glad, nor startling at helm and spear, for her sight was old. 

Up from its ashes at play, 
Wondering, not in dismay. 
Watched him a sun-brown child, through eyes, in the pure of their blue. 
Cleansing the soil of the face, where Nurse Earth frolicked her hue. 

Thinking what deeps would stir, at the summons to ranging and battle, 

"Bondi, old comrade," said he, "we rust in our idleness here. 
Come with me, leave to a churl thy hurdles, thy barn and thy cattle ; 
Under the gods of the North, let us ride on our old career." 

All in the proem was told ; 
Bondi before him hung cold ; 
Stricken the crone; till the peasant, in accent prophetic and dim, 
Quavered his rude soul forth, like the murmur of supplicant hymn : 

"Are thy days of mercy done. 
Lord of ocean, Trygveson? 
Thou didst open Heaven before us ; 
Heaven so soon its compass run? 

All my years of blood were past ; 
I had found me rest at last; 



26 



God was Father, man was brother; 
Voyage over, anchor fast. 

Hast thou not enough of jar? 
Thou wert terrible in war; 
Thou in peace wert loved and hallowed; 
Surely this the nobler far! 

Shall this cabin, dressed in fire, 
Feed and fill not spoilers' ire? 
This old wife be dragged in fetters? 
Babies pike-tossed at their sire? 

— I, grown coward? Look not so; 
Olaf, Olaf, thou dost know! 
Whether toil or danger quells me, 
Thou hast proved it long ago. 

Not these comforts of the ground 
Hold so fast my spirit bound; 
Thou hast shown us Law and Leader, 
Over all dominion crowned. 

In thy tidings of the Cross, 
We had covered earthly loss; 
Peace and pleasures, war and glories, 
By that gold were all but dross. 

Deadlier strife the foe within 
Waged, than iron battle's din; 
Not the thunder of all armies 
Tested hardihood like sin. 

Fury well may peril hide ; 
God alone can vanquish pride. 
What are shouts and buff'ets, think ye, 
When the gulf of hell is wide? 

Even more than all of this. 
Was the wonder and the bliss. 
When thy planting grew to fulness: 
Earth and Heaven seemed to kiss. 

Then our low and creeping span 
Widened into mighty plan; 



26 

All was marvel, all was reason ; 

Hope and Love had dawned on man. 

All our world had moved a pace, 
Forward on its giant race; 
Not an often thought with old men; 
Must she turn upon her trace?" 

Ever the thrall had been meeker, the ^nore had his lord been gracious; 

Only the under rock of the Norway peasant was there. 
Listening, Olaf had felt his shield too weighty and spacious; 
Lance too long; slidden down, they lay to the wantoning air. 

Yea, and it seemed that his helm. 
Brain was beginning to whelm; 
Quietly so had it thawed, and he stood in his feature as they, 
Eapt as on yesternight, but yet by a godlier lay. 

Never a word he spoke, but "Keep to the home of thy blessing; 
Will, I have found so good, I never could take thee without." 
E-ound he turned, as to rid him the spell of that gentle possessing; 
Grave and regal his mien, in his heart was the gloaming of doubt. 

Back to his hall as he stept, 
Numbness his being o'ercrept; 
Coming of day, not dark, was the twilight that folded him now ; 
Day once risen within, not long to eclipse might bow. 

Not by cathedral spire, not pomp of song or procession. 

Thus the enduring Faith had the steep of his heart regained, 
Not by symbol of creed, by wonder or martyr confession. 

Nought but by witness of work in the nethermost depth it reigned. 

Silence the muster let slip ; 
Bishop laid finger on lip ; 
Lords in their insolence malcontent, and foiled of their fray, 
Sneered, " Even more than of old, our liege is moody today." 

All as the roaring whirl, which forest and villager}^ shatters. 

Like to the lightning dart, that sunders the plaits of the oak, 
Even as ocean's assault, which the Drontheim citadel batters, 
Odin had blasted by, and wrath in his footstep woke. 

And as the living Sun, 
Once the wild work is done. 
Quiets the sea and the woodland, enlightens the vale and the hill, 
Odin has yielded to Christ, and the spirit of Olaf is still. 



27 



WOLFE. 



Our faithful Admiral is on his post, 

Where downward broadens the calm river-sea; 

His lapwing clamors rack the Frenchman's host ; 
And leave the darkness and the doom to me. 

My silent skiffs the narrower current brave; 

Their oars are voiceless, and no wanton lights 
Here fret the lapping velvet of the wave; 

So still, so dark, I tempt these girded heights. 

September gusts at last have left the stars; 

How faint they ponder, o'er these bickering fires! 
What are the gleams of heaven, in eartlily wars? 

What are their leadings, to our dark desires? 

But mortal flames may kindle to betray; 

But moon and sun may cast illusive hue; 
The stars alone have no deceitful ray, 

They know not beam and shadow, they are true. 

They tell me, that ni}^ hour indeed is come; 

These ramparts, that have barred the north so long, 
Tonight I scale; there sound our morning drum, 

Thence hurl the foe, and die in battle-throng. 

How sad a lot! will the kind world acclaim: 

Just on the rise of victory to fall. 
The long-earned meed to fail, the joy, the fame, 

The crown of promised love, of home, of all! 

What call they sadness? were it life to me. 
The billowy crowd, the blason, the harangue? 

The waste of honors, if such honors be. 

And droop not, envy-cankered, where they sprang? 



28 

Yes, let me search all truth, me and this heaven; 

To reap the harvest of this latter love, 
For which grim years I have longed, and vowed, and striven, 

Would this, even this, my benediction prove? 

The clasp of baby hand, the voice, the smile. 
So rapt me once, I sought my heaven in these ; 

And my sweet Katharine would my spirit wile 
From glory, duty, over wandering seas. 

Now shines her image, of the stars a star ; 

No more she comes to me, nor I to her; 
So calm, so clear, so taintless, and so far; 

To dream of converse is in wilds to err. 



Let me unbind her picture, parted not 

From this firm bosom, since she housed it there; 

Companion, bear it back, when the quick shot 
Shall pledge, instead of this, my faith is fair. 

One faith enough; how could I bind the heart. 

Tuned but to throb with these fierce empires' clang? 

How trim this gaunt abortion, from the smart 
Of tortured sinew and intestine pang? 

I owned both lordships, when in teeming June, 
These whitening crags first rose before my prow ; 

But this dire season's grapple, moon by moon. 
Leaves but one service in my bosom now. 

One hand there is, that reaches past the sea. 
That smites Antipodes, and cravens kings ; 

One power and purpose likest God's decree ; 
That league endures, alone of human things. 

This was I sealed and plighted to fulfill. 
My England's best, by this Canadian wave. 

Long has the mortar brayed, and I am still ; 
Paths of her glory lead me to my grave. 



20 

How deep the music of that churchyard lay, 
That my young being with new accent smote, 

Knells througli my early-witliering frame today, 
And tones all thought, all purpose, to its note! 

This is no slackening of the cordage stiff; 

This is the goal, where all is lyre and psalm. 
Let me but once plant foot upon that cliff. 

Beware, unconquered till this hour, Montcalm ! 

My mountain clansmen! this is not the steep 

Of many a Highland crag your wings have scaled; 

There let the dawning meet that whirlwind sweep 
That storms the bar, where mine and cannon failed. 

Peace then, poor fondling throng! spend not on me 
Your piteous waters, who have slaked all thirst; 

Joy in your hearth, your highway, lawn and lea; 
Blest in your portion, think not mine accurst. 

That were my death, the living of the world ; 

My grave the landed peace, the child, the wife. 
I live but only, where this bolt is hurled; 

And if it cleave my breast, the more my life. 



W 



30 



NAPOLEON IN REGENERATION. 



Quern te Dous esse 
Jussit, et humand qua parte locatus es in re f — 
Bespue quod non es. 



At last, a stroke has fall'n ; Toulon is ours, not mine ; 

The deed was mine, the brain alone. 
Thus have I aimed and worked, thus waited ; all was thine, 

France, or mine island ; nought my ow^n. 

True servant ! all mankind proclaim, and well they may, 

All to expend on others' good ! 
Nor I have will nor power to speak or think them nay ; 

But ponder, what that service would ? 

Is it such holy vow, to grace with toil and sword 
The Gallia of these hell-hound years ? 

To gorge the tyrant beast, that crowns but Chaos lord, 
Fat on our choicest blood and tears ? 

Shall all her millions, damned these ages to such woe. 
Find plenteous peace in these her chiefs ? 

And I, one vantage gained, if onward hence I go. 
Shall I assuage, or pile her griefs? 

Let me consider well : the time of parting ways, 
Long wavering toward, is on me now. 

This heart has hung divided, all my callower days; 
And fashioned, but to fail, its vow. 

Scarce had the boy outreached his infant sports and hopes, 
A world had scarce unfolded i^pace 

Beyond Ajaccio streets, ere inward stirs and scopes 
Of larger being swelled apace. 



31 

My virtuous parents there, my brethren and my friends, 
My struggling Corsa, lore and love, 

Once and again like mists would veil my shining ends, 
And to their beats my pulses move. 

What these demanded, I by rule of earth must yield : 

Prescription fair, for human kind. 
The soul that mightier arms than these hath come to wield. 

Another rule of earth may find. 

A wider bound I welcomed, in the warrior school. 
Where seething Paris fired my west ; 

No thwarting checked me there, in iron task and rule ; 
Food that my fibre nurtured best. 

But when the roar of gathering wrath and vengeance woke. 

When turned the fairy city fiend. 
When all the deeps of Want in lava fountain broke. 

And all the hell of earth unscreened ; 

Then, while my spring of youth to manhood rounded on. 
That August night by stealth I trod 

The hideous court, that raged and yelled the evening gone. 
Now laid in voiceless plea to God : 

The martyr guards, beside the door they fenced in vain, 
Stretched moonward in their crusted gore — 

Such piteous horror swept this heart that smiles at pain, 
I prayed to hear of strife no more ! 

But what of all these qualms ? is earth at peace for them ? 

Not so the doom of man ye waive. 
Not whelmed in rueful tides, but armed their strength to stem, 

This lesson that affliction gave. 

Still here, last night, when flame and terror lit the bay, 
When rending anguish wailed ashore, 

One instant almost then, the flood of ruth found way, — 
One instant, passion ; and no more. 



32 

And now I know, that I, henceforth and evermore, 
Shall to heart-weakness bow no jot ; 

Let sweets and softness breathe, hate and destruction roar, 
These I regard and cherish not. 

Enough the time o'erpassed, when I have swerved and sighed 
Flowers of the wayside build no wall. 

High portion in the world before me opens wide ; 
Affection there must act but thrall. 



Be this no hardening heart, no black Satanic will ; 

Far more the favor I can spend, 
Hold but my course unfaltering, uncorrupting still, 

Than if to every gale I bend. 

The world shall know me soon, and now for weal indeed ; 

The ruined frame I will restore; 
All France shall bloom again, where I the season lead, 

And Europe bless me shore to shore. 

For I as none of these, their ways of welfare see, 
And I the power within me feel, 

Not by the sword alone, once they consign to me, 
But rule of peace, their plagues to heal. 

In times of long ago, in old-world's darkling morn, 
When gaunt Religion stalked the earth. 

They fabled of the soul, in second period born. 

No more by flesh, but heavenly birth. 

And I may think, their dreams were presage of a truth ; 

Wild as the fantasy might wing, 
In this new rise of day, that clears my clouded youth, 

I hail my life's authentic spring. 

Farewell, delusive hours ; infirmity, no more ; 

I was not living, as I thought, 
I was but embryon form these twenty years and four ; 

Till this proud morning, life was nought. 



3S 

What freshness o'er the world, from orient light within ! 

My wasting currents rush to one. 
Fair terms with all I now would hold, all spirits win; 

So that my destined will be done. 

It could not be for chance, that men confess my awe ; 

That schoolmates, whom I chilled with scorn, 
Would mould in rank to prove my wayward scheming law ; 

That scarce an eye my own has borne. 

None be uij master, none ; man, fashion, realm, or writ ; 

In me the mastery shareless reigns. 
France ? mine Italian lips her tongue could never fit ; 

Nought bounds me ; all with me remains. 

Forth on my progress then ; companionless, unknown ; 

None may debar, no hand shall aid. 
Such was my fate's ascription ; sea-girt and alone ; 

My very stars the weird have said. 

An island bore me, nursed my early joy and care, 

An island kingdom is my foe ; 
An isle my throne shall stand, in glory lone and bare, 

A desert isle my vault below. 



34 



MARY. 



No MORE, Neariel, meet no more; 
For meeting only would betray 
The heart that now must find no way; 
Thy pledges I restore. 

Henceforth another must be thine; 

My own, to bear and not repine. 

For Joseph is my father's will, 
My mother's wish, and he is just; 
They are my Thora, and I must; 
My pulses shall be still. 
So true, so fond as they to me. 
So pure to them shall I not be? 

friend, Neariel of my dreams. 

Say, did I wrong thee? when one word. 
Had but my secret yearning stirred, 
Had severed all their schemes, — 

For they could never bear my pain,— 

And set me at thy side again? 

But when their tender plea drew near, 
I cannot understand it now, 
What marble overcast my brow, 
What could I do but hear? 
" Good daughter, we have word to tell : 
The righteous Joseph loves thee well. 

"He is not as the young and blind; 
He woos thee not with boyish rage; 
Yet is he scarce beyond our age, 
To whom thou art so kind; 
And many a year of sober love 
May be your portion from above. 



35 



"His godly works the Lord has blessed; 

His well-borne trade has brought him goods; 
No son renews our frosting bloods; 
Our labors find no rest, 
Yet are we falling poor, and dread 
What may befall thy precious head. 

" This good man long had fondly eyed 
Thy fair unfolding; oft he came. 
Yet thought not thus thy hand to claim, 
Till, through our masking pride, 
The need that racked us he discerned; 
Then gently moved what deeply burned. 

"Nor would he force thy virgin heart. 
Nor we would arm our parent right ; 
Thy joy and weal is our delight; 
An oldling child thou art : 
Great peace and comfort might betide; 
Be faithful, and thyself decide." 

I never could ere this have dreamed, 

So far my own life could retire. 

My visions and my soul's desire. 
As in that hour it seemed. 
No real thing before me stood. 
But what I owed, and what they would. 

May it be true, Neariel dear. 

Our love was fancy, after all? 

I saw my tenderest leaflets fall. 
And turned without a tear. 
But yet it was no fleeting strife. 
To part the hope that led my life. 

No twining of companion arms. 
No converse of two equal hearts. 
Where each its inmost wealth imparts, ^ 
And all earth's chillness warms. 

The bond of youth, through age to grow, 

This never must be mine to know. 



36 



And oh, to be — tongue may not tell, 
Not in its nearest undertone. 
Save to this quivering heart alone, — 
Mother in Israel ! 
For children on my neck to cling, 
Must this be my forbidden thing? 

may the good that I can do 

Be worth the charge of all it cost! 

I weigh not what I gained or lost; 
I only would be true. 
If I can render, wife as child. 
My tribute, all is reconciled. 

Then let me close my heart for aye 
To all most precious things of mine ; 
Let constant cheer about me shine; 
And mocking tongues may say, 

1 wedded but for golden bliss : 

I scorn me even to think of this. 

And Joseph — no fresh face in truth 
Has moved a greybeard's lust, I find ; 
My pensive ways they thought inclined 
To wisdom more than youth; 
Himself I honored and caressed. 
Till almost love they thought confessed. 

Shall I be then deceiver light 

Of that clear bosom without stain. 
And traitress to my parents' reign. 
Who dealt me only right? 

Not of poor Mary be it said ; 

Her idle pangs will ask no aid. 

So have my ways returned on. me : 
Oh may they bring me blessing yet! 
I was not wanton, will not fret; 
And well my lot may be. 

For when my heart had yielded all. 

Strange visitation I recall. 



S7 

It minded, what I used to hear, 
From olden sires, of angels seen. ; 
Still may the heavens unclose their screen, 
And that same blood I bear: 

On the sad silence of my soul, 

A rapture 'gan to rise and roll. 

There came the still Shekinah voice, 
If I can frame its utterance now, 
"Beyond all women honored thou, 
Hail, Virgin, and rejoice! 
Though mortal joys no more be thine, 
Forsake them, and accept of mine ! " 

Still in that light I walk apart, 

And ever when my shadows spread. 
And ever when my task I dread. 
The tide upbears my heart. 
Lord, take that empty heart, and give 
Of Thy dear peace, my strength to live ! 



11. 

The months begin to round the slow return 
Of that high hour, when first I found my way. 
I look in weakness on the world today; 
But kingdoms it would spurn; 
A burden wears and weighs my fainting limbs. 
But stars and sun that bright creation dims. 

How little could I dream, when lowly bowed, 
I gave my all to duty and my law. 
What benediction one poor act would draw, 
What glory from what cloud! 
I almost think, true son was never ,born. 
Till mine shall hail the Messianic morn. 

Thus shall it be; the Voice that pledged me heaven, 
From earth-bond weaning, told me not that hour. 
That earth should crown me with her dearest flower. 
And measure more than even; 



38 

Untwining every clasp of worshipped life, 
Should throne me mother, all as child and wife. 

Nor less for thee, my Joseph! I pour out 
My heart in offering ; that no childless age 
Should be thy hallowed life's ungracious wage, 
Perplexing men with doubt ; 
But as in all things that high manhood shone, 
Thou shouldst not miss the father's palm alone. 

And mine, the virgin seal that pressed so deep 
My heart's clear table, when those tidings came. 
That sacred stamp forever and the same, 
Behind all veils I keep; 
For matron, who has called the blessing down, 
Is purest maiden with most holy crown. 

might the world, so ever kind to me. 

But share the dayspring that my hours await! 
These are the longings of my springtide state; 
But all I leave with Thee; 
Sufficient now, that o'er my narrow span. 
Shines Peace Thy angel, and good-will to man. 



1^ 



PARABLE. 



41 



MORNING AND AFTERNOON. 



In early hours, of the starry dew, 

Of the birds that heaven and earth made one, 
My joy of labor, as wide and new, 

Awoke to the everlasting sun. 

My land was large, or its bounds I knew not, 

All conception of life was there; 
No bloom of beauty, nor harvest grew not, 

Well I assured me, with my good care. 

And many a breathing furrow turned 
Before me, and entered many a seed; 

And many a thicket I swept and burned, 
And warred on spoiler, and bog and weed. 

There was cottage, and forge, and mansion spacious, 

Scattered afar on my broad estate; 
They found me and witnessed me just and gracious; 

I gave them lease, and they kept their rate. 

One house, exploring a field untrod, 

I marked, which labor nor dwelling claimed ; 

It avowed not service to man, but God; 

Nor of earth nor her arts was the fabric named. 

"What means this heap, that it yields no duty?" 
I asked; "their reason the rest have found; 
They stood for use, or they stood for beauty; 
But this, why cumbereth it the ground?" 

"Ah, be not rash," said a hoary wight. 

Whom guarding the solemn vaults I saw; 
"The fulness of earth is in thy right; 
But a little for God, his word and law." 



42 

"1 worship more than ye all, and purer," 
I cried, "in the freedom of Nature's rule; 
You fancy your hold of heaven is surer 

By wasteful pomp and by worn-out school ? 

" You wrong the heart with your tyrant creed, 
Poor man and his Maker you stand between. 
Time once might be, when you served a need; 
But long outdated your term has been." 

"Between poor man and his Maker, truly. 
We stand," he answered, "to lead him on. 
Our olden bidding, forever newly, 
We follow, in steps of saints foregone. 

" Not we as they, but our Lord as theirs. 

And the pledged salvation is now as then. 
The flock destroy not, for whom He cares; 
But infold thyself, with the best of men." 

" I weary, your ancient rotes to hearken," 
I ended parley, " your humble pride. 
Your vaunts of light, that the world but darken, 
Your blessing, that curses all beside. 

" I grant you the glory of long ago, 

But where is its likeness, and in whom? 
In ourselves, who renew that life below. 
Not you, who build and adorn the tomb. 

" And I do you to wit, that the world is moving ; 
We grind not now with the water past. 
Free spirits advancing, learning, loving, 
A God find living, not buried fast. 

" No age of the world has wended by. 

But weaker your shrunken frame appears. 
It saves you rent, but the time is nigh, 

That shall close the fraud of so many years. 

" I will not rend it, nor lay in ashes ; 

Too like yourselves the proscription grim. 
But look, when your mouldering dungeon crashes, 
Ask me no aid to the spectre dim." 



43 
II. 



The afternoon on my toiling came; 
I was not broken, I was not sad; 
My strength was with me, and mind the same; 
Or ampler discourse it had. 

But now, in the prospect I had not known, 

By very growth of the inward span. 
How mightily more the world had grown, 
How little the deed of man ! 

The works that had been my fairy realm. 

The houses, quick with their trade and hum, 
The purpose high that had kept the helm. 
To what had their striving come ? 

I wandered wide on my pale domain. 

In a sun more potent methought than noon, 
When the dew and the song had quit the plain, 
And breath was a lingering swoon. 

The arid land had my spirit seared, 

From the noisy doors of unrest I shrank; 
Nor aught of refreshment round appeared, 
To cherish the heart that sank. 

And a billow of music, earthward rolled, 

As from soundless depth on the desert broke; 
And the temple that I had viewed of old. 
In my trance before me woke. 

I gained the portal, I trod the aisle, 

The cell where the gloom was more than light; 
And the cavern air of the awful pile 

Breathed o'er me the balm of night. 

And a living spring at the court within, 

With its lowly pulse all drought allayed. 
wine, what madness, sweets, what sin, 
To that pure content, unpaid 1 



44 

The fane had given what none else gave, 

In the range of my fond aspiring quest ; 
They offered me all that act might crave, 
But here was the shrine of rest. 

And many another beside I found, 

Who reached a glimpse and a rescue there ; 
The poor was rich in that shaded ground, 
Of the people whose speech was prayer. 

I listened again to the chanted rite; 

-There was fable, and idol, and old-world lore. 
I could not vouch what their tales indite; 
Scarce further than e'er before. 

But I found no ill to undo the good. 

No ban to outweigh the blessing's worth; 
And the name they called on their brotherhood, 
The divinest name on earth. 

Forth under the evening rays I came ; 

I noted the warp and the creviced wall; 
And I vowed repair of the shrinking frame, 
That had yielded me best of all. 



EVOLUTION; 

BY AN EVOLUTIONIST. 

In travels late I found a race. 

Who pleased me much in walk and face. 

When I could see their face, they did; 

For most-an-end, tliey kept it hid. 

So prone they bent it to the earth, 

Deriving thence their law and birth, 

Scarce once in ages could I spy 

The living mirror of their eye. 

And large respect for these I bore, 

By reasons one and many more. 



45 



They were so honest, clear and true; 

Nought would they vouch but what they knew; 

And wise they were, beyond my ken; 

I never had surveyed such men. 

No depth of this fair earth escaped ; 

No breadth her land or water shaped, 

Nor tree nor floweret waved its green. 

Nor beast or insect there was seen, 

But they had labelled and new-dight, 

In archives deeper far than sight. 

Of such I held with them discourse, 

And still the more I felt their force. 

Then, prospering in their rich reply. 
Some time I questioned of the sky: 
"We cannot reach to that," they said; 
"Too far it arches overhead; 
Nor if there be a sky we know. 
Indeed, or only optic show. 
Ah traveller, who awake dost seem. 
Waste not thy hours in fruitless dream! 
What can we fathom of the sky?" 
"How know we till we seek?" said I. 
"What has your seeking ever learned," 
With wisest headshake they returned, 
"But speculation fond and vain, 
Conflicting vapors of the brain?" 
And nought I found there, they allowed, 
But that it was the home of cloud. 
And as I pondered each by each. 
The more I liked their manly speech ; 
Though yet I found not overthrown 
The heaven whose glories I had known. 

I recked not much their doubts, but one : 
They might, I thought, confess the sun. 
Sure he whose light was everywhere, 
Whom even the very shades declare, 
In rising or in setting flame. 
Their wide acknowledgment would claim. 
And no discordant note was theirs : 
"Deny a Sun? who does, or dares? 
Most like we think it, on the whole; 
But keep thy fancies in control! 



46 



If there thy vision aim to soar, 

Thou art but blinded evermore; 

Hold to the earth, where thou canst learn; 

Let pass the orbs, to stand or turn; 

Here is the light, and only here." 

One step, methought, their way might clear; 

Could they but see the dawn appear ! 

Then might they know of earth and sky, 

How far asunder yet how nigh. 

With some, elected from the rest, 

I sought a hillock's airy crest. 

The hour appointing, ere the east 

The night-host yet one star decreased. 

On eyeballs tender-young from sleep, 

How awful shown that host, and deep ! 

On earth, its lustres did but show 

My darkling mates, head-bent below. 

Then, where earth-mist and orient met, 

Day planted his first violet; 

And when his rose unfolded here. 

While these grew wan, all else grew clear; 

Flame-vested cloud and choral grove 

Woke to the summons from above. 

But how shall tongue the tale relate. 

When these high flowers had cast their state, 

And all the glows of heaven conspired 

To one new beacon, mightier-fired! 

The west outvied the eastern blaze. 

First catching the baptismal rays; 

Down gladdening slopes and foliage crept 

Soft eddyings of the march that kept 

The light-tide which the planet swept; 

Till all the vale, in shade and light. 

Enchanted hearing, smell and sight. 

Long rapt from self in vision high. 
That fused together earth and sky. 
At last I sought my friends, and asked 
What of the morn wherein we basked : 
Though in the act, I must observe. 
Yet closer earth-bound, not one curve 
Of e'er a nape did upward swerve. 
"The morn is goodly," they reply. 
"But have you seen it, in the sky? 




LIBRARY 

DEPARTMENT OF THE mTERIOR. 



Library open from S.'l.'> a. m. until 4.15 p. m. 



RULES. 

1. The use of the Library is confined to the employees of the Depai'tment of the 
Interior, who must, before the first loan of a book, file with the Librarian a certifi- 
cate of identity from the Chief Clerk of the Department, or of the Bureau or Office 
in which employed. 

2. Before any book can be taken from the Library it must be submitted to the 
Librarian for proper rejjistry. 

3. Application for and return of books must be made in person, except in case of 
sickness or absence from the city. 

4. Books classed as " Works of Keference" or marked * in the catalogue must 
not be taken from the Library. 

5. No person will be permitted to take more than one book at a time, except in 
case of works of more than one volume when two volumes may be taken at once. 

6. Books must not be kept longer than two weeks unless upon application to the 
Librarian the loan be renewed. Only one renewal, for not longer than two weeks, 
permitted. 

7. Borrowers are strictly prohibited from loaning or transferring the books drawn 
by them to other persons, whether of the Department or not. 

8. When a book has been retained beyond the pei-iod of loan its price will be 
certified to the disbursing oftieer and deducted from the salary of the person with- 
holding it. 

9. Books returned will not be reissued until they have been exanained and 
replaced upon the shelves. 

10. AVriting or marking upon leaves or covers, folding or turning down leaves, or 
other defacement or injury of books is strictly prohibited. Books must be re- 
turned in as good condition as when received. Any book injured or defaced, 
while in possession of a borrower must be replaced by a perfect copy. 

11. In selecting books from the shelves handle carefully and replace those not 
drawn upon the shelves from which they are taken. 

12. Final payment of salary will be withheld by the disbursing officer from em- 
ployees quitting the service until he is satisfied that all books charged against them 
at the Library have been returned. 

13. The Librarian is authorized to suspend or refuse the issue of books to persons 
violating any of the above rules. 

By order of the Secretary : 

EDWARD M. DAWSON, 
15838b500-9-1900 Chief Clerk. 



47 



And noted, how each gathered beam 

Did thence as from its fountain stream?" 

"Behold, the dreamer cometh," then 

Rejoined these uncorrupted men ; 

"Ah, why from consciousness within 

Deduce the cause that sense must win? 

While thou, in sleep-walk through the skies, 

Coursed thy delusions, we kept eyes; 

Watched every step of light advance. 

No growing phase escaped our glance, 

And saw, on earth itself appeared 

Each differing ray that darkness cleared. 

Why it returneth at this hour. 

How passeth, is beyond our power; 

Its origin and principle 

Unknown and all unknowable; 

But here its pale beginnings are. 

And here its workings, not afar." 

So went they on their freeborn way, 
And I, rejoicing in my day. 



w 



DOG CONSCIOUS. 



Still at my post on steadfast guard ; 

Where is my Master gone ? 
Long have I lacked His rich reward ; 

Long hath His light not shone. 

Why could I not have gone with Him, 

So as I loved to do ? 
Was I not faithful to the brim ; 

Quick, and yet humble too ? 

Yet, since thundered His word of will, 

Barring my upcast plea, 
I can ponder His kingdom still, 

All He has been to me. 



48 



Close at His step to follow mute, 

Fast at His side to keep, 
Playing excursion and pursuit ; 

Circles aside to sweep — 

Spring at His chirp, His word. His hand, 

Fetch His desire from far. 
Every His thought to understand. 

Deep as my reaches are, — 

These, the delights that dance my heart. 

Monarch, His law denies ; 
Let the great past then, here apart, 

Lone as I rest, arise. 

None of my like, to nose or chide. 

Wander this quiet place ; 
These are the bounds, where neighbor's side 

Scarce from our own I trace. 

Here, came one of His race in sight. 

Of the false Masters one. 
Duty would be divided quite. 

Fawn on him, bark, or run. 

When they march to our own true door, 
Nought but as all were theirs. 

Then how I rush, and charge and roar ; 
Trifle with me, who dares ! 

Even as my Sovereign I adore. 

Aliens my anger move ; 
All is devotion, anger more ; 

Wrath itself is a love. 

Therefore those fellow-pets I hate. 

Lurking and basking low ; 
Sleek in their coat and sly in gait — 

Hatred nor love they know. 

Not with that velvet race I vie. 

Not in their darkness shine ; 
Gazing into my Master's eye, 

Part of its light is mine. 



49 



Truly too, of His own high kind, 
Like us poor vermin dark, 

Shall we not half their converse find 
Little else than a bark? 

Much of their talk I understand, 
More than they think it, oft, 

Theirs but a little further planned, 
Tempered, flowing, and soft. 

Even amidst my fury often. 

Armed at the stranger's tread. 

How in a piteous whine I soften ; 
Rather be friends instead ! 

How did this blessing come to us ? 

When did we first begin 
Higher life to inherit thus ? 

What were our earliest kin ? 

Far in the ancient wastes of green — 
Yes, we have known them well ; 

Never these eyes of ours have seen, 
Yet we abide the spell ; 

Never my rest I think to lay. 

Where it soever fall, 
Carpet or grassland, straw or clay. 

Swift, ere a thought at all. 

Round and about must claw-rakes twirl. 

Gathering like as leaves. 
There on the smooth our shape to curl : 

Ah, how the memory cleaves ! 

There, I say, in the roofless wild, 
Roaming abroad, our kind, 

Wolf or jackal, unreconciled, 
Master could never find. 

They were too free to bear a yoke;* 
Space of the world was theirs ; 

Over the putrid carcass woke. 

Howled from their horrid lairs : 



50 



Could not articulate a bark, 

Had not the shaded sense ; 
Less could they learn, grow, follow, mark, 

Garner our gain immense. 

I was of these, and like in root ; 

Looked not beyond my peers ; 
Only, I fancy, more a brute ; 

Smitten with nameless fears. 

Till on a day, no record now, 

One high stature I saw ; 
Whose but aspect, I knew not how, 

Grappled me to His law. 

One and head of our race, for all, 
Strangely He seemed to me. 

Though so other, so wondrous tall, 
Valiant and gifted He. 

He was above me ; that, no more. 

Knew I, or need to know. 
Thence the march of our progress bore 

Onward, and ever so. 

They, who would call no power their lord, 
Nothing beyond them own. 

Stunted and outcast, foul, abhorred, 
Wander their ways alone. 

Where is the wonder?, who can climb. 

Taking no hold above? 
Reaching upward, the hand sublime 

Reaches downward, in love. 

Some of them were, no doubt, who tried — 
Seen them I have, in cage — 

Blandish the Great One, tame their pride; 
Few could unlearn that rage. 

We, oh how shall our thanks be prayed, 
Dogs, whom the rest contemn. 

Humbling ourselves, have found the aid. 
Lifting us up toward Them. 



51 



What is the terror, like His frown? 

Ravishment, like His smile? 
Nothing our wild estate hath known, 

Now but an hour could wile. 

Dreadful the scourge He wields sometimes, 

Nor can we always know 
What the purposes, what the crimes; 

Only accept the blow. 

Then, when at last the hand puts forth. 
Then when the lap is spread. 

Transport, that worlds were never worth, 
Deluging, sinks my head. 

Supplications I breathe all day, 

Even if no murmur fall ; 
Hears He the prayers that find no way? 

Knows He, that knoweth all? 

Fieriest passion, noblest thrill, 

Ever that boils my blood. 
When I am loosed on track, to kill 

Live- things, His foes or food; 

Food in season. He giveth me; 

Couch and warmth are of Him ; 
But His own glory, only He, 

Maketh all other dim.- — 

Why does he sometimes fear, and stumble? 

Something for him too strong? 
Yet more wondrous, anon so humble. 

Laying himself along? 

Can it be true? no high decision. 
Vanquishing all things, his? 

Lives there, beyond all mortal vision, 
Some one, whose dog he is? . 

Would they be all, perchance, far better, 

Bowing the heart, as we? 
Each to confess him boundless debtor, 

Only in service free? 



52 



Are there of these, who humble never, 

Nothing above them hold? 
Are they not dwarfed, and barren ever, 

Like my brethren of old? 

Yonder! He comes; oh joy, long hoping! 

Where do my fancies fleet! 
Out with the dreams, the brainsick moping; 

Up and away, to meet! 



w 



APOLOGIA PATIBULI 



I HAVE stood, through the reeling ages; 

From pole to line I have stood; 
I have gathered of fools and sages. 

From a million waves of mood. 

But now I am growing older. 

And now it is changed, they say; 

It is time I totter and moulder. 
And go like the rest my way. 

So then, ere my pitiless tumble. 

That ushers the future in. 
Let me look o'er the seons' jumble. 

And see what my past has been. 

I know not myself, where earliest 
My crossbeam jutted abroad; 

Were it puniest folk, or burliest, 
That laid on me first their load. 

But ever their hates and treasons 
Have kept with me well the tryst; 

I have carried the thieves, all seasons; 
And once in a world, the Christ. 



53 



I have been myself a burden, 

More grim than those I have borne; 

I never could get my word in, 
To temper the ethic scorn. 

I never could tell, how many 

The households that slept secure, 

By faith of the guard uncanny. 

That my hempen bonds made sure. 

How many, whose crime no stresses 
Of law or of love could turn — 

But the vision of my caresses 
Appointed their only bourn. 

I allege no text, no Bible; 

For such you have now no care; 
And humanity knows no libel 

But finds an acquittal there. 

This one thing ponder; who built me? 

Do you think I have raised myself? 
If it be, you were well to tilt me 

At once on your topmost shelf. 

But where you have climbed, I followed; 

No tribe of you reached so high. 
In art, thought, institute hallowed, 

But surely you kept me nigh. 

Was it then no need that reared me? 

Is the need all over now? 
And when from earth you have cleared me, 

Is a place to fill, and how? 

Is the stream of the world's existence 

So pure, that each drop of life 
Can be moulded into assistance. 

Whatever the stain and strife? 

As long as you glow for battle 
Where noblest of blood is spilt. 

What good of your moral tattle 
At me, who but menace guilt? 



54 



When you all have grown so gentle, 

That reason will do for all, 
I will fold as a wornout mantle, 

And gladly my tackle fall. 

Till then, like the sport of sea-ravage, 
Wreck-driven to unknown shores, 

In dread, whether civil or savage, 
The tribe where his lost bark moors; 

Till the hour that my stark right-angle. 

Aloft on his gaze expands. 
And at once his doubts untangle. 

He has come to enlightened lands! — 

So you, in your heaving progress. 

Remember it was no brute. 
No wild -man, giant or ogress, 
, But culture, that riped my fruit. 

And consider, if blind protection 
More sacred with you shall be. 

Or Judgment's assured election. 
That planted and watered me. 

If not, farewell ; as I rendered 

To others, requite me true. 
And beware, lest the wrath engendered 

Of murder, avenge me too ! 



W 



ABSOLUTION. 

PiRAON walked the ways approved, 
Where earlier all his fathers moved. 
Theirs had been long renown and late ; 
And, heired with grace and wdde estate. 
And bright attendance nurtured high. 
To do was easier than to try. 
He weighed not much another's frown. 
Nor learned to tremble at his own. 



55 



For he was favored of the King ; 
Through ages did tradition bring 
The assurance of the saving wand, 
Protective from the royal hand ; 
In whose redemption sure-defenced, 
No fear what man could do against. 
High were the towers above his head, 
Broad the domain about him spread ; 
Light he surveyed the landscape round. 
But deepliest where at utmost bound, 
There twined a sacred sheltered plot. 
Which all revere, but enter not ; 
Too rare those amarinthines bloom ; 
Yet waft afar their sole perfume. 

But once the morn unveiled her face, 
That waked Piraon to the chase. 
Pulse-full behind the chiming pack, 
He threaded swift the air-laid track ; 
No care of garden, grove or waste. 
All Nature fuel to his haste, 
He raged athwart that closure sweet, 
Where earth's divinest blossoms meet; 
Who those had planted, what they bore. 
He thought not, nor had recked the more. 
There swept the yell, the quarry couched ; 
Within those rocks, that shade, he crouched; 
And ravished vines and prostrate bowers, 
Turf-smothered, mortal-wounded flowers. 
Mourned voiceless his barbaric spoil. 
But thickening now the sharp turmoil 
Closed round the gasping victim's lair 
Of tender verdures Eden-fair ; 
Till, rooted from his desperate hold. 
He proved no game of prize, they told. 
But some base vermin of the wold ; 
The very hounds their shame betrayed ; 
Example none could bring to aid ; 
Some guessing, that the loathsome beast 
Had on the nobler held his feast. 
And gathered thence the trace that so 
Deluded — nought of this I know ; 
But home they wended, mute and slow. 



56 



Then sages, whose low counsel came, 
When fiery deeds were not in aim, 
Pleaded the ruined Paradise, 
And minded of its regal rise ; 
From each estate the King reserved 
A seigniorage that never swerved ; 
One plot peculiar, which he tilled, 
And with serene enchantings filled. 
"All things thou namest thine, are his ; 
Far more that hallowed garden is." 
Piraon looked, and surely knew, 
.He missed an old accustomed view 
Of beauty, on the far hill-side ; 
For just in bounds of sight descried, 
From where he dwelt, the flowery cope 
Of that soft arbor crowned the slope. 
Would this revive ? he mused, in vain ; 
And louder urged the warning strain ; 
Till on his heart, contrition-broke. 
And now where fear itself awoke. 
Compulsive yearning swelled at last. 
And hurled him onward, eyes upcast. 
Against the Throne, his deed had wronged. 
He passed the highways, broad and thronged ; 
He gained the clouded entrance-door ; 

Right on the throne his prayer he bent. 

His own plea, though by warder sent. 
"Thou art forgiven; transgress no more," 
Answer of comfort back he bore; 
And such the peace that laid his pain. 
Long thought he ne'er to mourn again. 

Yet, soul-unburdened howsoe'er. 
Round his estate saluting fair. 
Needs must he find and feel the blank. 
Abiding, where that glory sank. 
His pardon brought not back the bloom. 
His fury had betrayed to doom. 
No power he wielded, no device. 
Could pay the lost Elysium's price. 
Then sighed he. What avails my rest, 
And evil none the more redressed? — 
He sought once more the awful door ; 
The way was clearer than before. 



57 



But far in stranger clime, he learned, 

The Monarch season-long sojourned; 

His law by hand of herald left, 

To guide in place the realm bereft. 

Piraon tarrying, deep in doubt, 

Heard as at last an angel shout: 

" Hail to the nations! happy morn! 

In these high halls a Prince is born. 

Who shall his Father's work secure. 

Whose name shall sound while orbs endure, 

Whose presence shall be nearer found. 

Whose glory shall no cloud surround ; 

Nor only state shall be his care; 

All mortal burdens he shall bear; 

Go, sin-bent suppliant! fear no more; 

Thy Healer now hath passed before." 

Piraon, dumb with wondering joy. 

Drew homeward. Now was earth a toy; 

All thought, all purpose, power and skill, 

Were tuned that prelude to fulfill. 

And while abroad the tidings swept. 

Like festival his kindred kept. 

"With this, my wound at last shall close; 

This is creation's morning rose; 

The garland that has perished here, 

In tenfold bloom shall reappear. 

This gift hath all things given; poor heart. 

That dreamed aught good can e'er depart! " 

But age and year held on the same, 
As when that first probation came; 
No day its course turned back to dawn ; 
No change in mountain, grove or lawn. 
The gap that smote him, sad and still. 
Remained, the record of his ill. 
Not all the faith and hope that woke 
Where that celestial anthem broke. 
Could render one lost blade of grass. 
Again the wide exultings pass; 
Counsel anew he sought, and none ' 
Could teach him, where he must atone. 
At length he pondered : Why the flower, 
That crowned the desolated bower. 
Have I so long desired, and need 
No more but to regain the seed? — 



58 



In time he learned where that was hid ; 

His robes of splendor he undid ; 

In tatters, feet and bosom bare, 

In hunger and rejected fare. 

Of joy, of love and ease forsook. 

His uncompanioned way he took ; 

Ah, that stern way, that desert ! well 

I know them, but I may not tell ; 

No moon or sun, but star alone. 

On that dark wilderness hath shone ; 

No shade, no stream or meadow fair ; 

No tree but that of Life grows there ; 

And that, on opening view, how bare ! 

may the wanderer hold his course, 

And fail not of his sorrow's source ! 

There all his works are long and slow ; 

Nor well Piraon's fates I know ; 

But he in season, as I read. 

Came laden with the gracious seed ; 

He sowed and watered with his hand. 

The germs his power could ne'er command. 

And though contention might debate. 

Between the early bloom and late. 

At least the chasm that rent his soul. 

Was by his penance-toil made whole. 

Thus, with the labor, all was well; 
But woe when he the tale would tell ! 
That he had trespassed and repaired. 
The listeners all aright declared; 
But if he breathed, that prayers and cries 
To Lord or Prince did not suffice. 
Though surely heard and answered once. 
And only when he sought response 
Of living action self-advanced, 
Then his redemption had bechanced; 
That was rebellion, they agreed; 
The nearer tale they would not heed, 
That thus provided of the King, 
By his own statute stood this thing, 
The godliest gift was all His own, 
To find within thyself alone. 



59 



SAINT RADULF 



There is many and many a holy spot 

Where the strongholds of God sequestered stand ; 
But the gracious fame of the rest is not 

As of those in the olden Gothic land. 
And of all the saints in that realm adored, 
Saint Radulf nearest ensued his Lord, 
Fulfilling the whole command. 

So bounteous none to the poor around, 

In goods at need or in rede divine, 
So faithful none in the task was found. 

That the laws to do or to bear assign ; 
None so could labor, or fast, or pray ; 
Oft even he bated unhid, they say. 
The pint of his daily wine. 

Not there as of old, one lax, one strict, 

A chance-grown fellowship guideless roved, 

But in perfect statute of Benedict, 

Like orbs in their sphere the squadron moved. 

But none save Radulf the charge might bear, 

When errand grew, to the convent near, 
In guard of that rule approved. 

For now in exchange of goods and word. 
The faithful mission between them paced ; 

And now for dispense of alms, each heard 

Where other had wrought, lest the succors waste. 

And almost rival with Radulf 's own, 

Had maiden Anicia's rumor grown. 
Once noble Italian dame. 

Her state, wealth, promise of earthly good, 
For virgin crown she had laid aside. 

And low in the lowly sisterhood. 

No love but her Lord might claim the bride. 



60 

Great joy in the bloom of that fadeless flower 
Good Radulf gathered, and many an hour 
In the fruitful concourse plied. 

For hers was the quick discerning eye 

For needs of the order, and works of grace ; 

In the league of their counsels, far and nigh. 
Report of advancement waxed apace. 

Their word was a seed of blessedness, 

Their touch was healing of all distress. 
And brightness on every face. 

But the smile of many was frown of one ; 

The Abbot has Radulf called one day, 
And in sweetness, betwixt the twain alone. 

Revealed him tidings of strange dismay. 
" Oh Radulf, heed, there are tongues abroad ! 
Good Radulf, servest thou only God, 
Or a woman, search and say ! " 

" Dear father," glowed the apostle monk, 

" What shame, that the stench of hearts unclean. 
In precincts holy its bane hath sunk. 

And troubled a Master's thought serene ! 
Regard them never, chief; be sure. 
To the pure in spirit are all things pure. 
Far more an elected Queen. 

"Had I never known of the joy of Light, 

That friendship of earth distrust might stir ; 
But well I had severed the clouds of night, 

And cleared the dial that may not err ! 
And all attainment of thought or deed, 
I hold, as ever, at Master's need ; 
And all is enlarged in her. 

"And thinkest thou, such a tie were new ? 
Survey the glories of ages gone ; 
Wherever the starry Monk ye view, 

Not far has the votaress twin-like shone ! 
As God ordained them, each other's aid 
The walk of either more holy made 
Both rounding a perfect one. 



61 

"Blest Antony loved Peristera, 

Macrina lighted high Basil's way, 
For our Benedict his Scholastica ; 

Or of flesh or of spirit, sisters they; 
And for heavenliest earthly names of all, 
There was Lydia, Lecta, for John and Paul; 
Nor the Lord Christ said them nay — " 

"Ah Padulf !" sighed the corruptless man; 

And more could he scarce find tongue to speak; 
" But they were saints," he at last began, 

As in accent of pleading, sad and meek; 
For mark, unsainted was Padulf yet; 
On his name had Death no sanction set; 

— "And mighty; thou may est be weak." 

They parted; the abbot full deep debates. 
That perilous path shall he interdict: 

But doubting of scandal, of truth, he waits, 
In tenderness almost conscience-pricked, 

And craves in his prayer, so pure, so fond. 

To withdraw the erring by softer bond, 
That would clasp them, not constrict. 

He was not after the iron mould. 

The shepherd of that untainted flock. 

As many a Christian ephor old, 

Whose eye was lightning, whose purpose rock; 

His gentleness rather had made him great, 

And exemption grew there, and debate. 
Which discipline else would lock. 

The pair found meeting, ere long, in bond. 

Which they called service, and men called love. 

In their cures one evening, far bej^ond 

The bound of accustomed range they rove. 

" 'Tis the hour," she minded, "to tell the beads." 

With lifted mien he returned, "What needs? 
Shall we count our beads, above? 

" There is more of heaven in walks like this, 
Than many a soul of the just shall know." 



62 

And truly, it was no common bliss, 

Unfettered of eyes and rules to go ; 
How narrow the thoughts and the cares of those; 
How vast creation before them rose, 
What music their being's flow! 

They were near to night, they were far from men; 

And shadow fell on their path before. 
As it breathless plunged to a downward glen. 

Where beetling crag-vaults groined them o'er. 
No help of the holy guardians near ; 
And the spotless cloisters now may fear 
To behold their face no more. 

Well, deeper is ear than eye, poor souls; 

And wide are turnings, when ways are long. 
Down through their cavern that instant rolls, 

More dread than thunder, more soft than song, 
As a thousand eves they had heard it thus. 
But as this yet never, the Angelus, 
Well named of its angel throng. 

So far, they had thought not to catch the tone. 
So near, between them its pulses came. 

A glance, half-meeting, they dart each one; 
A thought unbreathed, was it ice or flame? 

All passion of penance, all rapture, prayer, 

World's death and redemption, all were there, 
In the voice, all years the same. 

What then of their heaven, that blest all these? 

They knew not, but this had its consort jarred. 
Those vows were other than such fair pleas; 

A Life remembered, their transport marred. 
They parted, as cord at the touch of fire; 
Then, terror arresting impeached desire, 
To their fastnesses, dungeon-barred. 

Who then shall image the rolling fumes 
That stifled the prostrate soul that night? 

Nor slumber curtains, nor peace illumes 
The chamber of sickness and aff'right. 



63 

Shall be fly? wreak penitence? toil apart? 
And anon the bottomless traitor heart 
Yet prompted the dire delight. 

If the float of a black broad wing was there, 
By the stony floor, nor of bat nor owl 

Was the midnight flutter, but thou, Despair, 
The lost one haling to mansions foul. 

With the lees of his heart on his lips he prayed: 

"Oh Unpolluted ! at last thine aid ! " 
And he grovelled beneath his cowl. 

Ah, those were days when the faithful band 
Might look for succors from hosts above. 

Untempted the doors of Radulf stand ; 

But the cell has dawned with a clearer Love. 

He dreams he can hear as a night-choir sing; 

He thinks he can vision a gleaming wing; 
He knows the eternal Dove. 

And fails not the face, as the beams increase, 

With love in its act outcasting fear. 
"What doest thou, K-adulf ? is this thy peace?" 

Said the voice that none but himself can hear. 
"0 give me my pathway, Savior mine! 
Let hell devour me, let heaven shine, 
Be only my service clear." 

"Thy way declare? thou hast known it long," 
Said the Pure, untroubled of mortal ills. 
" There is prayer, and the poor ; work, fast, and song ; 

What is it beside that thy fervor wills?" 
"But what of Anicia?" gasped the monk. 
"I know not," the Angel said, nor shrunk; 
Amazement the suppliant fills. 

" Ah surely thou camest," he cried, aghast, 
" To lift me forth of this pit so nigh ! 
Now, ere the sentence my spirit blast; 

Oh, what have I done, in such doom to lie! 
This flame that has burned me black, this love, 
Is it of the world, or the w^orld above?" 
He covered his swooning eye. 



64 



"But scatter the fuel, and die the fire," 

Replied the Form, with a ray like mirth. 
"She will not cumber, if thou retire; 

In plenteous harvest, bewail not dearth. 
In thy fruitful circle of uses grow, 
And of all the Kingdom, is none shall know 
If thy love were of heaven or earth." 



GEAIN LIFE. 



lam the wJieat of God; and in the teeth of beasts I shall 
be ground, that I may be found the pure bread. 

Ignatius of Antioch. 



I. 



New world that has found me ! 

Yet seems to be old ; 
Winds roughen around me, 

With tidings of cold. 

Yet I rise, never fearing. 

Thro' leaves flitting down ; 

Green lancelet, appearing 
Mid landscape of brown. 

Still the woods are a wonder; 

Still birds are in tune; 
And the sunshine thereunder 

Lies soft as the moon. 

Will it always continue? 

These portents of ill. 
With graces, that win you 

To live and be still? 



65 

II. ' , 

They are gone! their knell has been rung me 

In swing of that dolorous blast. 
I thought, when the hues overhung me, 

They were something too gorgeous to last. 

Now the life on the earth is fast frozen. 

The life in the air has died; 
And the pall for the bier is chosen. 

Of thickening white full wide. 

How it stiffens and smooths the waters! 

How it dries the milk and the fruits! 
Overhead, for the showers, sleet patters. 

Frost cracks and creeps at my roots. 

When the strong huge oaks are brown-blasted, 
When the bright quick birds are fled, 

When the kingdom of flowers is wasted, 
What shelter for my little head? 

. But the tempests rumble without me, 
Yet harming me never the least; 
I will tuck my pale sheets about me. 
And sleep like the grounded beast. 

III. 

Is it song that has called me, or murmur of wind 

From the bed of my rest? 
Is it sunlight, or streamlet, or drops grown kind 

Out of Heaven's full breast? 

Oh, the lambs and the blossoms! the opening green, 
That mirrors how mine has done! 

But a moment ago it could scarce be seen, 

Till you caught me against the sun. 

But my neighbors already are waving in joy; 

While I think, I am springing, and hiding the earth. 
No more shall the season devour and destroy; 

But all shall be gladness, and music, and mirth. 



66 

IV. 

Deeper blue the heaven has vaulted, richer yet than all before, 
-Till it seems to bend upon us, and mingle witli our green. 

Nobler roll our fragrant billows, not to burst on desert shore, 
But to scarf their wandering slopes with shade and sheen. 

And my stature now at fulness, wears no more the idle plume, 
But my fluted stem has risen, fit column for the crown; 

And the ensign of my progress, forth above the roundiug glume. 
Now at last my beard advances, to ripening hue of brown. 

the world of wealth and splendor! oh the pomp of Nature's zenith! 
Where the sun has but to look on dailiest things and turn them new. 

1 am centre of this empire, and ye witness what it meaneth: 

Mine is all the bright creation, all my ministers §re you. 

V. 

This is a new befalling! all that age we stood. 

Grew of our own will, changing, waving as we would ; 

Now have they girded us, and where we would not, borne; 

Now have we low been laid, tossed, shackled, bruised and shorn. 

A feebler vein throughout our stiffening forms had spread; 

Our curvy tops were searing, yellow, sunset red ; 

It may be, joy was past in that familiar field; 

Faint loss it may have been, to that stern edge to yield. 

How o'er the parching clods we faltered in the heat! 
I wonder if the world has worn its year complete? 
No matter, here in shade, serene and cool we lie; 
• The feverish moods and transformations all are by. 

Here is our lodge secure, together head to head; 
No more forever now the frost and storm we dread; 
Here sweetly from our slumber still of peace we breathe ; 
Protection fast above, foundation firm beneath. 

VI. 

Horror of death! woe to me now, what has uptorn my rest? 

Bellowing fangs, throat of the fiend, engines that howl and gnash ! 



67 

All was so calm, age had come on, quiet had smoothed my nest; 
Why should this tempest crash? 

Band after band, these of my kind, whirled from our tranquil couch, 
Leap to their doom, sink at the jaws, rush from the world of light; 
What of them then? scattered to nought, scarce but a dust they crouch ; 
End of us all, but night. 

These are the stems, nothing but these, shattered in empty straw, 

Shapely and brown, strong in their grace, bending them once in play? 
There must we lie, skeleton white, lost in the monster maw, 
Vapor and ash, for aye. 

Mine is the turn; helpless I wait, swift shall the darkness be. 

Sad little life, never assured, nothing will now remain ; 
Purpose was none, slender thy joy, heavy thy toil, with me; 
All to be passed in vain. 



NEPENTHE. 

In the East when the world was young, 
Over a poppy garden hung 

Two, from the world beyond ; 
There, from the new creation's verge 
Came they, almighty Demiurge, 

And Genie, he held in bond. 

" What is this fantasy? " asked the Power; 
" How hast thou tinctured, and why, this flower, 

Reaching me with its breath ? 
All for its beauty ? or hast thou use ? 
What is thy miracle of that juice? 

Hast brewed it for life, or death ? 

" Where in my aeon of peace I sat. 
Earth and her wonders rejoicing at. 

This like a question crept ; 
Thine was to finish the work I planned ; 
Here hast thou answered my command ? 

For not in my ranks it stept." 



68 



" Nay," said the subtle-endeavoring thrall, 
" Tell me what purpose was thine, o'er all. 

Misery thus to cast? 
Laying a region divine and fair, 
Creatures of joyous life to bear, 

And head of them all, to blast? 

" Crown of the whole wide work, was man ; 
Thou hast thyself declared the plan. 

Making him like to thee ; 
Why, in the rest of thy depth serene, 
Robe with those agonies long and keen. 

But him who thy son should be ? 

" Infinite ills of man I saw. 
Pity wearing on iron law ; 

Healing was mine alone. 
Earth should a flower put forth, I said, 
Waiting sad man to bruise its head, 

For benison of his own. 

" Pains of mortality, at that balm 
Captive, shall sink to a waveless calm ; 

Neither my boon yet rest ; 
Vision of glory, the spirit's tide, 
High on the realm of light shall ride. 

And waft him upon Thy breast. 

" Love himself shall not like it build ; 
Have I not all thy counsel filled, 

Man to be child of Thine ? 
Surely amid those gulfs of woe. 
Little of Thee was he like to know. 

Except for this gift of mine." 

" Even of thine hast thou given him ; go," 
Answered the Great one, dark and slow ; 

Left with himself,, then spake : 
" Is it the curse upon Gods themselves, 
Thus to appoint vicegerent elves. 

Their charge of design to take ? 



69 



" What is to follow of this wild grant ? 
Man will go ravening in the want, 

Under the brute will stoop ; 
All my deepest-intending pains, 
Even by his to procure his gains, 

For empty illusion droop. 

" Higher device I must now contrive : 
I of my own true life must give. 

Portion as he may bear ; 
Heaven of mine shall send its gleams, 
Passing even his opiate dreams, 

Here save him, if never there." 



w 



THE BETTER WORLD. 

The good Lord thought one day, in the time when he worked by days, 
" I have made a mistake in the world, I have drawn the lines too hard. 

For a rest to men and myself, I will try them easier ways ; 
Will see if a little less toil will do, and a little more reward. 

" There is mistress Lilia now, the daintiest flower of earth ; 

In the mob that delicate bloom to blow, in the mire, is piteous wrong. 
Go to, I will find her a world, shall her elegant mould be worth ; 

And sorrows of other such will soothe, who have cried to us there so long." 

So he built her a world, where nought could grate that exquisite sense, 
Of palm and palace and sea, and the smile of grass was there. 

There was fulness of books and art, of the vulgar was no offence. 

Were mates who explained not, neither excused, nor exceeded with vexing 
care. 

And Lilia cast those eyes, like the twin-stars opaline hued. 
O'er her world, and it was good, and little she found to blame. 

But the lack of her daily grief, of itself the grief renewed ; 

The clime without her was vesture-changed, the dye of the heart the same. 



70 

She had thought not, the rarest flower is of dungy earth at the root ; 

It was even the choice disdain, that had fretted her so before, 
Which held her so high above the unworthy soil at her foot ; 

And her pleasure grew but the hollower still, and her gloom oppressed the 
more. 

He brought a lover to Lilia then, who worshipped where she stepped ; 

And a season of soft diversion wore, in the sport with her happy slave. 
But when that was past, and he pleased no more, yet darker the heart-cloud 
swept ; 

Till the peace that the good Lord's pains had failed, her opiate phial gave. 

She had guessed awhile it was joy indeed, and the time of her rest was near; 

She had not dallied for sport alone, or to witness a kind soul's pain. 
But the life that bore no ground for toil, no bower for Love could bear ; 

He too must rest, nor can always fly, or will fly to his home again. 

So the faithful task was o'er, and the good Lord said with a sigh, 

" What flatteries have my children poured in their fondness about my feet! 

Omnipotent was my name, the ruler of all things I ; 

And the heart of a girl I could not fill with bliss for an hour complete. 

And I see she had better thriven in the old world, waiting on heaven ; 

Where gleams of blessing at least had passed, and glimpse of welfare true. 
It must be as I planned it first, the strife of their weal be striven ; 

I can help you more, my children, so ; it is best that I can do." 



w 



PAINTING. 

An angel came, of her band the fairest ; 

Holy and sweet was her charge, and bright. 
" The vision of heaven henceforth thou sharest, 

Earth," she said, " in my shapes of light." 

And the tables of wood and of stone, rude-grounded, 
Smooth of old, she has brushed aside; 

On her fresh-knit canvas arise, full rounded, 
Forms that she knew, where the gods abide. 



71 

The keen frame drank of the glows and shading, 
Promised to bear them abreast with time. 

The angel knew but of things unfading ; 
Not the waste of the nether clime. 

The ages went, and the ages wondered ; 

Filled their heart with the gleam divine ; 
And stamped the wrinkle, and dimmed, and sundered. 

Many a feature, and gracious line. 

The angel sighed to her sovran Master, 
" my Lord, have I v/rought in vain ? 

Regard, and pity our dull disaster ; 
Faints our lustre, nor springs again." 

" Not thine were the work," said the Unmistaking, 
" Should it have lasted, as mine alone. 
I sent but a dawn, for man's awaking; 
Fulness of day makes all his own." 



PRAYER AND SERMON. 



75 



THE DIRECTOR. 

They beat their chords, yet weld them not in one; 

They wield their parts, but yet not jointed true; 

Once more, once more, the wandering strain renew, 
A thousand times once more, the fractured tone. 
Amid the throng he stands and works alone. 

Low laboring to an end they may not view ; 

The form of sound long must he hack and hew, 
Unrulier far than adamantine stone. 
No voice he mingles through the pealing choir. 

No hand among the strings, breath in the reeds; 

The discord into harmony he leads 
By thwarting all attempt and all desire. 
How oft he dragged them when they did aspire ! 

How deep he harrows, till their spirit bleeds ! 

What nothingness he makes their choicest deeds. 
Waste of their verdure, ashes of their fire ! 
His touch they feel not but in check and blow : 
Him and his work, when all is wrought, they know. 



w 



COMMENCING MONK. 

Two visions, through this lowly gate, 

Appear, to men and me; 
A bare and burden-bound estate, 
Not I as lord but vassal there to wait. 
These all alike may see. 

But that same altar of my trust, 
They call my very tomb ; 

They point at all it lays in dust, 
The shrines and idols of their love and lust, 
And wrap me in their gloom. 



76 

"Did God create thee man/' they say, 
"His making to unmake? 
His blessing wilt thou cast away, 
The joys He made, the glories more than they, 
For thy pale fancy' sake? 

" Shall never bloom of woman blow 
For thy peculiar bower? 
No child of thine before thee grow, 
To call thee by the dearest name below 
We name Almighty Power? 

" Is all the world of laboring man 
But lazar-house to thee? 
Is Greatness for thy holy ban? 
Canst thou divine no universal plan 
In sad Humanity? 

"Beware, lest under name of toil. 
Be thy true worship Ease! 
Lest, daunted by an hour's turmoil. 
Thou cast the fairest of thy gifts to spoil, 
Thy treasure to the seas ! " 

Thus have they warned me; thou, God, 
Knowest, if I heeded well ; 

If path unbidden I have trod, 
If dream have lured me, or taskmaster's rod 
Have scourged me, to my cell. 

And ye that muse on what I lose, 
And nought of what I gain; 

Now, when this door my access woos. 
Bethink you, what my soul thereinward views, 
Led by no meteor vain. 

I vaunt you of no Heaven to come. 

Whose wicket is this bar; 
I show but mine elected home, 
I tell, that proudest arch of earthly dome 

Shields not such prize by far. 



77 

Scarce even the shelter from the Foe 

Who wars and will not flee; 
That he will seek me here I know, 
Nor placid shades can lay temptation low, 

But where my work shall be. 

No plant of tenderness will bloom, 

Beside my ways on earth, 
But I will blend its last perfume, 
Not here with ashes, but beyond the tomb. 
To rise in holier birth. 

The bridal of the soul is mine, 

That fears no barren bed; 

The bond no discord shall untwine, 

The crown with ever-widening rays to shine, 

Though dream and youth be fled. 

No babe shall sing, but some shall fall 

Of that sweet care on me; 
And where but two or three should call 
My name of Father in a single hall, 
A thousand there shall be. 

My counsel shall be close and dear, 

With their unfolding minds; 
And friendship weaves our hearts more near, 
Where never cloud of interest dims the sphere. 
And all heaven's cordage binds. 

The world-work, on whose aid you pray, 

Is more for us than you; 
We shine upon it as the day, — 
Not I the sun, dear Lord, but one meek ray, — 

And heal it as with dew. 

Nor think, the pomp of thrones be hid 

From our sequestered clan; 
To monarchs, if our Master bid. 
We bare the mandate, as His prophets did, 

But know them first as man. 



78 



If ye, though all your earthly cloud, 

A star of honor claim. 
Which is but soul within your shroud, 
To all the world we bear that lamp avowed, 

And shine with clearer flame. 

This virgin courtyard's narrow square 

Is heaven's own harbor-isle. 
Dry up the founts that flow not there, 
Lord, of this hearth one ember let me bear, 
And it shall be Thy smile. 



SPEECH OF ANGELS. 

My business, on a time, 

Beyond our misty clime. 
In traffic led me by the bounds of Heaven; 

I did not entrance win. 

But I often saw within, 
And came to know the sky-folk, six or seven. 

I have not much to tell. 

Of the things that there befell ; 
In the books where those are written you may seek ; 

The place is not, in fact, 

Very loudly famed for act; 
But only this, I heard the Angels speak. 

As to this I had heard much, 

And had the notion, such, 
No doubt as others, when the phrase they turn ; 

It is here I would correct 

That use, in one respect : 
I never heard in life a sound so stern. 



79 

Not as the babbling voice, 

In which we all rejoice, 
When baby tries the strings he has not learned; 

Not of the maiden's kind. 

Soft as the cedar-wind, 
In which our beings have so thrilled and yearned; 

Not as the queen of song. 

So tender and so strong, 
Nor as any tone of music we can teach; 

Not as any sound at all. 

That angelic we would call. 
Seemed, when I heard it first, that angel speech. 

Be sure it was not loud; 

But well I might have vowed. 
No thunder ever pierced the bone like this ; 

I shivered with strange fear, 

And looked about the sphere. 
And wondered, That they call the land of bliss? 

It seemed, an iron yoke 

Drew on me when they spoke. 
That bound me, every sense and every limb; 

Through action, w^ord, look, thought, 

Seemed to run the stricture, Ought, 
With a scent of something like damnation grim. 

I did but as they would, 

For nothing else I could; 
But this of all was what the strangest seemed : 

In a course of time the yoke 

From off my shoulders broke, 
And the voice grew even lovelier than I dreamed. 

Its tone was just the same 

As when there the first I came; 
I suppose I got accustomed to the sound ; 

So I thought I just would say, 

If you chance to pass that way. 
And should hear it, not be frightened off the ground. 



80 



WISH. 

My Wish and I were playmates dear, 
Now far asunder, now anear; 

Some times at one: 
But let that happy morn appear, 

My Wish was gone. 

Once in a space my Father came; 

And earth and Heaven were now the same; 

Where then my mate? 
Could not have been His child; or, shame. 

For tricks of late? 

At last I learned, that when some bar 
My dainty Wish constrained afar, 

More was my chance. 
For what nor wish could mend nor mar. 

My Father's glance. 

Thought of my Wish could fill the hour 
With heavenly-semblant joy and power; 

Yet blessed rather, 
When trampling down the rosy bower 

Unveiled my Father. 

For all He gave me, thanks I pay. 
And more for all He laid away ; 

If Wish's fall 
Were Spirit's spring, her night his day. 

Let him take all. 

And there, behold my Wish that passed. 
Return immortal at the last: 

Forever now 
To hold her Lord of Fulness fast. 

Is all her vow. 



W 



81 



THE UNREGARDED. 

" The last, forever still the last ! 
Am I the only worthless hand? 
The others, great and small, have passed, 
With sliding glance athwart me cast; 
No station else to stand? 

"I labored, faithful, morn and eve; 

My gifts were scarce at meanest rate. 
The rest commend me, use, and leave; 
They promise, parley, and deceive; 
I watch, and serve, and wait. 

" My early hours forecast me fair ; 

The snows are gathering on me now. 
Still all the train advances there ; 
I drop to loneness of despair — 
Save one ; and who art thou ? 

" Poor lorn companion, like to me, 
Look up, unmantle, sound a word! 
Long have I felt, though slighted thee : 
So, now at last thy face I see; 

And — save me ! Thou, my Lord ? " 

Yes, deep discoverer, who beside ; 

Was I not always here, the last ? 
Last in thy heart, thy hope, thy pride? 
I watched thy brave processions glide, 
And I was overpast. 

Had I been first in thy desire. 

Thou hadst not stood bewailing here ; 
Thou wouldst not first or last require ; 
For none precede and none retire, 
Upon the eternal sphere. 



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82 



TOURIST'S GUIDE. 

Come to the August hills, look down the cliff; 

Let ocean breathings purge thy grime away ; 
Launch on the forest-bosomed lake thy skiflp; 
And man's high work survey. 

Yet come provided, lest thou lose thy pain ; 

Not much, but needful; one poor glass forgot, 
The denser cloth, the purse, thy cost is vain, 
The glory all a blot. 

Still more concerning, know thou what to leave; 

If all the riches, that these highways throng, 
Shall crown with blessing, nor with bane deceive, 
Bring not a self along. 

w 

THE TENANT. 



I LIVED, one time, in the strangest house ; 

I entered it some soft morn of Spring ; 

I cannot remember the opening ; 

But only, the birds began to sing. 
And the chambers one by one to rouse. 
The frontward rang from the first and gleamed; 
The inner lay in the dark and dreamed, 
Till their time should waken them too to air; 
And they were the deepest and richest there; 
One, over the rest, the mansion's throne. 
Where all its order was framed alone. 

11. 

Well, years drew over my canny house. 

And the more I noted, the more I mused ; 

It wore not, but grew, forever used. 

It rallied, whenever assailed or bruised, 

In toil unbending, or gay carouse ; 



83 

And those chambers widened, as of themselves, 

The halls and arches, the vaults and shelves ; 

And marvels so many the closets held, 

Such law constricted and life outwelled, 

I learned to fancy, it might rehearse, 

On a stage so little, the universe. 

And ever I spent maturer care 

To hold my lodging in safe repair, 

As I strove, communing long, to find 

In that fair building the builder's mind. 

III. 

But the wonder at last befel my house. 

More strange than all of the vernal prime ; 
It had fitted myself, that early time ; 
It was not wearied with stain or grime, 
With rift or reeling, with mould or mouse ; 
But now, when so long those cares I spent 
To cleanse the blemish, to heal the rent, 
I but found, in the home I would shape so true. 
More alien ever}^ year I grew. 
It would not yield as before to me 
The instant claim of its service free; 
It vexed me without, it was gnawn within, 
I felt the old trusty joints unpin. 
With buttress the mouldered walls I propped, 
Door cumbered, and thickening window stopped ; 
There was ever a fall, and ever a strain 
That of old I knew not ; I called it Pain ; 
And all my endeavor but set it clear 
That I and my dwelling were not so near. 
However the place might fix my love, 
Resistance palled; it was time to move. 
And strange again, of my house I knew. 
But nought of myself, what would ensue ! 
Yet stranger, the word of those who say' 
That the two are one, as they go or stay. 



W 



84 



JOB. 

Peace, over all abroad, and all within ; 

How is the world one vessel of great peace! 
Storms are but murmurs, life is. rest; and sin, 

A passing cloud that gathers but to cease ; 

While vestigeless of waning or increase, 
Above them all, the living heav'ns endure, 

Whose tuneful service watches no release. 
Whose glance is mildness, and whose walk is pure. 

What moves those hearts, that throb with doubt and fear, 
And call our state, mutation's cowering slave? 

Nought but all-bounteous order governs here, 
And ocean freedom with no restless wave 
Is mine, eternity this side the grave. 

And no foreboding what the rest shall be ; 

The very hearts that in such tumults rave, 

Are calm environ and repose to me. 

Frail in themselves, they steadfast seek my face, 

Uncertain in all else, on me they rest ; 
They understand not, but they render grace, 

And him that claims the least they honor best. 

Who can resolve me, wherefore thus oppressed, 
They groan with shadows that but witness light. 

Or how the soul, once aspiration-blest, 
Should falter ever, or relapse to night? 

Our flesh indeed is tremulous to pain ; 

The loving ties that lead enchanted man. 
Full oft may sunder, long to close again ; 

My daughters once were fair, and now are wan ; 

We may not hold the warp and woof of plan : 
But change is only as the swaying leaf. 

Whose root decays not in that twinkling span ; 
Whence grows the mastery of imperial grief? 

Now 1 remember ! once, three lives ago, 

I too was clouded, under pangs and care. 

Sure it is years since I have thought that woe ; 
And now it rises, unaloof and bare. 



85 

Oh memory, strange thy necromancies are ! 
Ahnost aghast one moment was I smote 

With that intense perspective unaware ; 
Now in the ages past behold it float. 

Yes, I repined, I wept, despaired and cursed, 

If dreams like these were ever truth of mine. 
Whence should they grow ? how find their passage first, 

Possessing mansions not of their design ? 

Yet how had such serenity divine. 
Which thus hath rased them from my heart so long, 

In my clear firmament thus come to shine 
But for those vapors that had done me wrong ? 

Well may I bear with others weaklier proved, 

Who in their tribulations sigh and moan, 
So recollecting how m}^ depths were moved, 

In hours when I like them was overthrown. 

Yet it was said, no scourges matched my own; 
How light then must our mortal burden lie. 

When passing-heaviest of the ages known, 
With not one darkening trace shall wander by. 

Thou who didst wrap me in that vale of shade. 

Which then I deemed the night that never dies, 

Now, ere its memory shall forever fade. 

For that alone my lowliest thanks arise : 
There was the birth of life's diviner guise ; 

Wide is the blessing Thou hast since let fall. 
Sweet and serene my lingering sunset lies, 

But Thou in thine own cloud wert more than all. 



W 



86 

THE SAINT. 

Here is the valley, mist and mire ; 
Fruit may grow there, to desire ; 
Only too much fluid blights, like too much frost, or fire. 

How many, brave in youth and blood, 
Have essayed to stanch the flood. 
And ere long have sunken, blotted in the fog and mud ! 

But there shall come, who spurns the ill ; 
Quits the marsh-land, mounts the hill ; 
Spotless o'er the fen-beclouded, light of Heaven upon him still. 

The hallowed Name his lip beseemed ; 
He beheld what we but dreamed ; 
Holiness he made his calling, worked in virtue, blessing schemed. 

It made us pure to call hini Saint ; 
In his cleanness laved our taint. 
In his bright advancement sought we to uplift our progress faint. 

One follower in the eager chase 
Of that high-directed pace. 
Came abruptly on the portal of the eternal dwelling-place. 

With heart of praise he looked it o'er ; 
Talked with one who kept the door ; 
Each rehearsed the world he came of, blissful clime and baleful moor. 

Our traveller almost hung his head. 
While the valley's plight he said; 
" But we have a saint among us, like the best of yours," he pled. 

" Who is it, of such happy fame ? " 

Prompt the answer, with the name : 
" You must surely know him, from your very midst he came." 

" Yes, we have heard- of such a wight," 
Quoth the warden of the Light ; 
" Though it was not here the custom, as a saint to class him, quite." 

" Who should be then ? " — a ghastly fear 
Creeping o'er the inquirer here. 
Lest the god of his adoring, foul dissembler might appear ; 



87 

But soon a milder thought had birth, 
That the sanctities of earth, 
In the glory of this kingdom should approve but meagre worth. 

Then came reply ; for truly, he 

Tongue-bound somewhat seemed to be : 
" I suppose the reason is, that such a one is just as we. 

" One does not call oneself a saint; 
Others, whom no pencils paint. 
Many a time will bear the title here of least attaint. 

" They who have never left the ground. 
Never coursed the mountains round. 
Labored only that the fruit and that the healing might abound ; 

" How many have plowed the fulsome lair, 
Borne the burden of its care — 
Ah, you do not know them, all so close about you there ! 

" You see their faces crushed with toil. 
Trace the shading of the soil. 
And you think them earth-bound captives, earth-born and corruption's spoil. 

" But who the idle swamp has drained ? 
Who his hand with dregs hath stained? 
Middle-deep in rank pollution, inch by inch hath slowly gained? 

** For him, the faithful earth-begrimed. 
Him, the bogs have thickest limed. 
Him no voice hath blazoned noble, oft our sweetest bells have chimed. 

"The guide who pointed you this way. 
Hold in honor as ye may. 
He would reach at once the end ; the earning means we rather pay." 

" We honor lowly workers too," 
Said the guest, " alike as you ; 
These are many ; have you not a mark of sainthood true ? " 

" We sort them not with any art ; 
Only he who finds his part. 
And who does it, is the man according to our heart." 



EOOM. 

Not the spaces of the land, 
Not the rolling sea, 
Bid thy pinions welcome to expand 
Eagle-wide and free. 

All the climes and all their change 
Add not to thy span ; 
Flight of scene and avocation strange 
Overshade the man. 

In the fulness of thy sight, 

Thought'st thou to be filled ; 
But the moaning void that urged the flight, 
Scarce by these were stilled. 

One immensity is thine, 

Where thy soul can soar ; 
Where the regions are a clime divine, 
Treasure evermore. 

Chamber, of thy muse and rest. 
In whose little round. 
Ever grew the Spirit's planting best. 

Holds thy widest bound. 

Disappointment droops not there. 
Where no promise bloomed ; 
Walls that vaunted never, Look, how fair, 
Never dulness gloomed. 

Here thy thought the world can range. 
Where thy mark shall be. 
Thwarted not by sound or motion strange ; 
All shall come to thee. 

Peering at thy window forth 
On a croft of sky. 
More its handbreadth glories will be worth. 
Than the hills descry. 



89 

Here the prayer was, here the lore, 
Chosen converse here; 
Each high hour one beam shall weave the more 
In thy mansion dear. 

For, thyself the home dost build, 
Of thy dwelling sure ; 
Whoso frames of wood or stone hath filled. 
Thine alone endure. 

And that fabric ever fair 

Stamps her shadow well 
In the wall and window, couch and chair. 
Of thy quiet cell. 



w 



PURE TO THE PURE. 

There were two whom once in a walk I heard, 
As in grave discourse their thoughts conferred ; 
For they were defining severally 
Their sense of the sweet name Purity. 
And whose were rather my kindred voice, 
And which conclusion were Reason's choice. 

Not mine to answer ; their speech is here ; 
But I sought to know them ere I returned, 
And the one was Man, one God, I learned : 

And the first was speaking, as I drew near 
" Unspotted amid the world to dwell. 
To centre Heaven in the fumes of Hell, 
No thought of ill in the heart to bear. 
No idol of vice to harbor there, 
No outward action or thought within 
To flee the light or to savor of sin. 
As cradled infant, as maiden's breast. 
To be void of concupiscence unconfessed ; 
Corruptless of honors, of passion, of gain, 
In the ocean of evil a rock to remain ! " 



90 



There was more that I trace not ; but after long, 
The voice I had waited rejoined the song ; 
" The vision is well for a land of dreams ; 
Another the waking feature seems. 
To know the sound of her holy name, 
To feel her breath in thy loss and shame, 
To bear with others' and with thine own 
Defeat, when resolve is overthrown ; 
When the heart of thy soul is taint of lust. 
Upward still to regard, and trust ; 
Hopeless to be what thy spirit would, 
Wearing the evil, doing good ; 
What thou art, and what must be. 
Knowing, thou art pure to me." 



if 



THE PIPE. 

Empty, idle tube of wood ! 

Even so much, or splintering reed ? 
Tarriest thou for any good ? 

Where canst thou arrive at need? 

Once the leaf about thee played ; 

Once the flower thy stature crowned ; 
Once the sap thy veins arrayed ; 

Flashed the light bird once around. 

Not all these so much I miss : 

Once upon thee breathed the wind. 

Ah, the passion of that kiss ! 

Pulseless now, all dumb and blind. 

None may lift thee for a tool ; 

Build or burn with thee, not now ; 
Hollow timber for the fool. 

Staff of comfort art not thou. 



91 



Yet thy form was not so mean ; 

Yet a care about thee shone. 
Shall the hour be never seen 

For thy purpose ? Only one. 

When the breath shall inward stream, 
From the power that shaped thy frame, 

Then shall Heaven around thee gleam; 
Then shall be thy act and fame. 

All the losses who shall mourn 
Of thy earth-won riches then ? 

None shall think how lowly born ; 
Thou shalt voice the soul of men. 

This is all for thee, poor quill ; 

Yet what part in this is thine ? 
Only as thy maker will, 

Be of dust and be divine. 



W 



PAVILION. 

Well may I rest, tho' storm and war 

The world of foreign shores convulse ; 
The blast of evil from so far 

Stirs not my pulse. 

Rest may be mine, tho' o'er my land 
Perturbing rumor scour amain ; 
They watch, who on her sentry stand ; 
I dream again. 

Tho' uproar all the city shake, 

No wonder I may find release ; 
The loftier crests the lightnings take ; 
Grass waves at peace. 



&2 

I may repose me undismayed 

With neighbor iDg strife and wrecks hard by ; 
I love my neighbor, and will aid; 
Not he am I. 

Tho' in my house disaster smite, 

Shall be an hour of calm allowed ; 
The torch of comfort sifts a light 
Thro' deepest cloud. 

My own poor frame in pangs may writhe. 

Yet peace of thought redeem the pain ; 
Apart withdraw the spirit blithe, 
And mock the chain. 

But if that very spirit chafe, 

And all disquiet beat within ; 
There find the harbor, still and safe, 
And sleep begin ? 

When I was all but strife and sea, 

How came the truce, the haven blest? 
The toil and tumult were of me ; 

Not mine, the rest. < 



w 



ONLY A SHADOW. 

There dwelt a tribe of weary toilers, 
Down a meadow near the sea ; 

By famine sieged and rent by spoilers, 
Brown with labor of their lea. 

So clouded oft, so marred and wasted, 
Life its very light denied ; 

But evermore at eve they hasted. 
And with morning, to the tide. 



93 

Once wrapt among the folding surges, 

In their unpolluted breath, 
Their music from creation's verges, 

All oppression sank beneath. 

There was the roll and there the thunder, 
There the flower of mist and foam. 

There was the love and there the wonder. 
There infinity and home. 

None marvelled, who had seen the gladness. 
Known the strength, of that embrace. 

At those who longed to purge their sadness 
In the wave, and scars efface. 

And many a song they sang of saving, 
Fresh from out the blessed spray. 

And hymned the eternal fountain, laving 
All the ills of man away. 

Then some reviled their pure endeavor : 
"What does Ocean care for you? 

Did he respect your wailing ever ? 
Will he change, or will he rue ? 

" Look, and behold his desolations ! 
Ray of heart can you behold ? 
Adore him all your age, ye nations. 
He will slay you as of old." 

We think to change him ? Grace forefend us 
Answered they who all had seen ; 

What more could all his kingdom lend us. 
But to find him, and be clean ? 



W 



MY LOVE. 

Who may tell of my love and me ? 
Vowed of old and an hour are we ; 

Nothing to fear between. 
How should I bring those clasps to sight ? 
Love is of darkness and of light ; 

Quickening first unseen. 

I was in dimness, entombed and lost : 
There my love the abysses crost, 

Glory above the gloom. 
I in the cheer of the sun may go, 
Secret and silent my love lies low, 

Celled in the dayless room. 

Ye may crown me or ye may leave, 
Ye may comfort me or deceive, 

Fortunes the world calls dear ; 
One in your changing is tried and true. 
One, but the firmer in fall of you. 

One in your cloud more clear. 

Some, do they say that my love no more 
Shines with the ray and the rose of yore ? 

Some, that it all was dream ? 
I but look in the love-lit eyes, 
Keason I cannot, I am not wise. 

Know but the deathless beam. 

What if the darkness, relented now. 
Not those vanquishing flames avow. 

Such as enraptured once? 
Fairer the wider-enlightened land. 
Nearer the walk is, hand in hand, 

Surer the sweet response. 

Said I, that never a shade befell? 
Many a water was heard to swell, 

Many a fire outburned : 
Mine were the prayers and the wayward rove, 
Pureness and faith were of my love ; 

So have we still returned. 



95 



Even in openest haunt of men, 
We may pass and return again, 

Ever in dalliance fond, 
None may our wooing decipher well, 
None the exchanges of love may spell, 

Eead our incorporate bond. 

All must come to the light at last ; 
Vainly the shadowing veil be cast, 

Earth and her tribes will know. 
Many a love is of mortal span. 
Mine is the God of the worlds and man, 

Each in his answer go. 



w 



MARANATHA. 

Far from his world, the world that he had made, 
The God receded, into realms unknown ; 

On his departing crept unkindly shade, 

While torch and candle ever bravelier shone. 

" Delusion, pass," cried each phosphoric wight ; 

" This is the sole uncontroverted light." 

Where had he wandered ? Not the choicest souls. 
That kept his close communion, could report ; 

They knew his presence, but the distant goals 

That round his march, were not of their resort. 

Silent they waited his assured return. 

And aided all those earth-sprung gleams to burn. 

Now he is coming ; not as throngs admire. 
In highway progress, or by ocean mart, 

Not as in fable once, by cloud and fire. 

But as his way is, in the good man's heart. 

Hide not your tapers, that are now so vain ; 

Yet may they serve us for a night again. 



96 



ON THE SAND. 

The simple world of old, is wonder skilled : 

Now have we mortars, that will set the sand, 
Till, on the mountain rock or shifting strand, 
Nought matters where we build. 

And after all, where be the mighty odds ? 

What is your sand, but rock digested fine ? 
Nature the same, and subtler to combine ? 
All devils have been gods. 

" Grim desert rather," shall the spirit cry ; 

Let Nubian whirls the fenceless pilgrim whelm, 
Better than lose the compass and the helm ; 
The bound of low and high ! 

But where the sand is, there the wave has been ; 
And where the wave has been, it may return. 
One day these lodges shall the ocean spurn : 
Then shall the mount be seen. 



w 



THE GUIDES. 

It gems the holy mountain slope. 
The gateway of our joy and hope ; 

How far or near it stands. 
The measure falls not in our scope, 

On those high-broken lands. 

But now, by sleight of air, no doubt, 

So close that arch appears. 
We scarcely seem to dwell without, 
We see the door-wings wheel about, 
We list the choiring spheres. 



97 



Again, by turn of airy glass, 

Or sweeping mist, or shades that pass, 

Our entrance hides so far, 
That prospect is despair, alas. 

The glory scarce a star. 

Yet never was there lack of wight 
Who all the route could tell ; 
And one. Divinity she hight. 
Was surest of her step and sight. 
To lead the pilgrim well. 

But tho' one goal she ever named, 

With many a thousand lamps she flamed 

On paths dissevered wide. 
And every way the other blamed, 

Till all, confusion cried. 

A purer torch I sometimes deemed. 

Philosophy upbore ; 
But all so high the beacon gleamed. 
To most a meteor only seemed 

The orb a few explore. 

Not with such vaunting claim aspired 
Another who the dimness fired 

With light unlike to stray. 
Calm Science but the task desired, 

To point by steps the way. 

But she who every foot secured. 
Avouched not of the whole ; 
And they, of that firm staff assured. 
Declared not if their sight were cured 
That doubted of the goal. 

They knew not, upward if she steered ; 
And many another scout appeared ; 

Why number all that come? 
One vowed the pass already cleared, 

And led into a slum. 



98 



None bore the warrant, could approve 

Their calling nnassoiled. 
One held, you need not climb nor move, 
And you would reach the port above ; 

All promised, all recoiled. 

It was the Way's own fault, I ween ; 
Too hard and steep the space between. 

For mortal foot to dare ; 
Yet others in the gate were seen. 

And I have entered there. 

Where was the guide then ? all have sought. 

And various answer win. 
Some named, and named him well methought; 
But few his fixed image caught, 

Who dwelt unseen within. 



w 



A GOING UP HIGHER. 

I. 

Love one another, as He said ; 
Not only bond of man and maid, 
Of child and parent, friend and friend, 
Their skies of joy about us bend ; 
But love the wronger and the foe ; 
Let prayer oppression overflow; 
Nor aught beneath us nor above. 
Avail to shake the throne of Love ! 

IL 

Not peace on earth, division and a sword 

Befall the dearer followers of their Lord. 

The grasp unseverable on Duty's rein, 

Shall clench the hand, and steel the nerve to pain ; 

Peace in her bosom lapped the tender vale. 

Storm and high shock the mountain fronts assail. 



99 

Now must the soft enamored soul advance 

In mail of conflict and unswerving lance ; 

Now his embrace shall wreathe in iron strife, 

And strength, not sweetness, pass from death to life. 

The goal is bare, the mandate is enough ; 

Ah, that the way should stretch so waste and rough 

Those highlands are to gain, but not to hold ; 

Kind Master, yield again the vale of old ! 



w 



THE DISSEMBLER. 

Prayer, from a heart beleaguered with her sin ? 
Can these acceptance and assurance win ? 
Thou, spend on chance and roving lusts the day, 
Then think one breath to purge the clouds away? 

No forger, truly, here may sit ; 
But here is not the hypocrite ; 
The follies of the shallower day. 
Those were the mask, now fallen away. 



w 



CONSECRATION. 

The hour is come : no more the joys 
Of wildering sense delight ; 

New wings are forth upon their poise. 
And new must be the flight. 

Not to an earthly love 
The vows of this allegiance breathe ; 
These choral pulses could not move, 
Where tides of passion seethe. 



100 



Not to a reverend guide, 
Whose voice is wisdom to the rest, 
I yield the pilotage untried ; 
He knows not of my quest. 

Not in an order pure, 
That gathers loyal souls like Heaven, 
In leagues that out of time endure. 
Is measure for this leaven. 

Not on example high. 
Of hero leader hangs my gaze ; 
No Washington this hour be nigh, 
At parting of all ways. 

Not aftei starry saint 
I steer me, wheresoe'er he shine ; 
That pointed lustre is but faint, 
Where all the sphere is mine. 

Not unto Christ the Lord, 
In person as on earth he shone, 
Can be this heart-blood offering poured ; 
Here is a greater one. 

Not under awful God, 
Before whose throne the nations bow. 
With hopes of rest and fears of rod, 
I lay me prostrate now. 

Too inward for all name, 
Too living for all form thou art. 
Revealing to each hour its aim. 
And one with my own heart. 



101 



REGENERATION. 

The plowman in his furrow left the share, 
As o'er his arm the prophet's mantle fell ; 

He might have worn his years in creeping care, 
For age to bend him and for death to quell, 
He might have branched or withered, ill or well, 

And Jordan legends been his utmost lore, 

No fancy tracked his flights to heaven or hell, — 

One touch of that annointing hand passed o'er, 
He rose and shone afar, aloft and evermore. 

Here in our lots of earthly accident, 

Fast rooted to the soil of petty pains, 
We fare, on phantom joy and promise bent. 

Or emptier phantoms, unrequiting gains; 

Till, far from will of ours, amidst all stains. 
By ruling step the devious path is crost. 

The Savior o'er his inward kingdom reigns. 
The child of earth is ranked in heavenly host. 
And woe to those who miss, to those who found and lost! 

But Thou, whose law these high-born gieamings trace, 

Hast wiselier set thy seeds than so to mould ; 
A thousand waves thy Spirit's prints efface, 

A thousand ways renewed the impressures hold; 

Thy gracious tracks frequent us myriad-fold; 
The stir of morning, sunburst after rain. 

Glimpse of warm heart, of azured highland cold, 
The motions from within, retraced in vain; 
Bring on the eternal birth, the vanished Heaven regain. 

w 

JUNGLE. 

Where the tiger sets his den ; 
Nought be mess for him but men, 

Once he learn the taste : 
Lion is the noblest there ; 
Wolf and serpent know the lair ; 

for lifeless waste ! 



102 



And a thousand leagues away 
Lies the dire encampment, say ? 

At thy homel}^ doors 
Watch the beasts their hour to spring, 
In thy chambers ; everything 

Voiceless hisses, roars. 

Secret wish for brother's ill 
In thy closet crouches still, 

While thou lov'st his praise ; 
Sheets, where innocence should breathe, 
By the hell-blast fiercest seethe, 

Neither sleep allays. 

Might the sun, whose arrows search 
Every kennel, every perch, 

Scour them with his ray ? 
All from him the brood has grown, 
All of him the fiery zone ; 
Wilder uproars are his own; 

Be it as he may. 



W 



Every morning we are children, every noon is manhood's bloom. 
Every evening age is onward, comes the darkness with our tomb. 
Art thou not beyond thy lesson, on thy waking let it watch; 
When the opening thought is tender, there the rein and signal catch ; 
Give thy action to the midday, arm be strong and heart be bold; 
Find the things that make for quiet, when the hour is gray and old. 

w 

PERMANENCE. 

" No MORE the roses of the transient cheek 

Beguile me with their promise unfulfilled ! 
The skeleton within, my thought shall seek ; 
There be illusion stilled ! 



103 

"No more the tender hope, the dream, the glance; 
Swift airs and hues, the glimmer of an hour ; 
Build on the rock, and let the rainbow dance, 
And vanish with her hour." 

But since the moulding of the orbs themselves, 

Have sternest things the sounder wear approved? 
Her rock from age to age Niagara delves ; 

Her rainbow stands unmoved. 



Sweet heart of maidenhood, that gives so much. 

The while it gives not all ! 
Sweet laughter, sweet regard, and sweetest touch, 
As leaflet's fall ! 

What is so dear in all the world's embrace. 

Where is such heavenly ease. 
As in the sparkle of that moonlight face. 
And tones like these ? 

No, here was not the charm ; my own belov'd 

Was not so sweet, but love. 
A thousand times she came and was removed ; 
That did not move. 

Not that fair look, but beauty, I adored ; 
Thou, Nature, wert my goal. 
Thy hues are deathless, and thy loving Lord 
Thus wooed my soul. 

w 

WORK. 

Fair sight, the brawn-compacted limb. 
The brown hand, mail-clad with its labors grim ! 

When bright eyes please not, they shall please ; 
No ruthless daylight mocks the charm of these. 



104 

Boughs, that no rule of beauty serve, 
Bend with fruit-burden into gracious curve. 

Fair record, of ennobling deed ; 
Of souls vrho toiled for more than fleshly need ! 

They face the world without a fear ; 
They dread no audit of their office here. 

But thou, who hast not found thy task : 
Where are thy tools and vinej^ard, shall thou ask ? 

Yet nearer than the field or yard. 
More thronging cares await thee, and more hard. 

In all the ways thy spirits run, 
Are there no paths to open, and to shun ? 

No cumbered ground, of weed and brier 
To purge unsparing, under edge and fire? 

No roots of old usurping trunk, 
Like death to rend, far down thy bowel sunk ? 

No stone to pile, no rock to heave, 
Though dire the hole that exorcising leave ? 

Let these engage thee, still enlarged ; 
Till all the rest be envied, lighter-charged. 

Slack tho' thy arm, thy brain unspent. 
Thy silence throbs, above them all intent. 

Then shalt thou murmur, " Nought to do. 
But this void struggle evermore renew? 

" Nature in every germ to quell, 
With nought but ceasing ill for doing well ? 

" On shadowy thoughts, instead of things, 
To work forever, what fulfilment brings ? " 



105 

Fear not the harvest, faithful swain ; 
The soil that grew the weed shall grow the grain. 

Fear not the Planter, in his hour, 
Who puts the seasons in his only power. 

His living vine is of one root ; 
Thy barren pruning is already fruit. 



ff 



" Where hast Thou been, so long ? 
These many months have worn, and Thou not near ; 
And shall they shrink together, till the year 
Take leave without Thee? hast thou any fear 

Thy child to gladden with thy strength and song ? " 

What are these names, to me ? 
I know not what they mean, thy months and years ; 
Nought of thy times, and little of thy tears. 

If I was ever with thee, I am now ; 

Were I not with thee ever, how couldst thou 
Call thus upon me ? What is it to thee 

If dark upon thee turn the orb or light. 

So thou hast found the course ? Hold but thy sight 
At anchor there forever, firm and pure ; 
And my returns are sure. 



W 



THE WORLD. 



109 



THE BACKLOG. 

Lie at thy rest, brave length of oaken brawn ; 

The hearth shall fold thee well ; 
And, fair caress to lull thee unwithdrawn, 
The wanton dallyings of the flame shall fawn 

About thy rugged fell. 

What balmy whispers shall her idlesse breathe, 

Too fine for word of sound ! 
What streaming fingers blandish and enwreathe. 
What coils and tendrils, welling from beneath, 

Entwine thee round and round ! 

A thousand years the blasts have charged in vain 

On thy unconquered front ; 
The clouds have scourged thee with their hail and rain, 
The suns have parched, the frosts have pierced amain, 

And thou hast kept thy wont. 

Thou stoodst a column, when the winter's blade 

All herb and blossom felled ; 
A tower of green, the summer stretched thy shade, 
Ev'n by the ax thy timber undecayed, 

Its lusty fiber held. 

But here, a sinuous clasp, a supplest bow, 

A voice and glance of cheer. 
Invest thy ancient fortitude ; and now, 
Who shall be vanquisher, this tongue, or thou ? , 

Fate in that smile is near. 



W 



110 



CITY OF THE DEAD. 

How do thy highways flow, how do thy numbers grow, 
Widen thy spaces, City of my dead ! 

Once here and there a tomb chilled my unfolding bloom ; 
Now thy pale traces await me every tread. 

Not guarding hallowed grounds, not heaving grassy mounds, 
Not willow-sentried, my City wide and still ; 

Here where the caldrons burn, where human tides return, 
Forms of the buried rise, death-mansions fill. 

First when I trode the street, where the world-pulse's beat 
Echoed within, all was life at very crest; 

Now every shadowed street comes with a grave to meet ; 

Here then was motion, here record now, and rest. 

More are the mustered shrouds now than the roaming crowds: 
Number I told not, but more are those in might. 

Even as the fixed array scatters the throng away. 

Forms I behold not, subdue the tribes of sight. 

Build seat and temple high, dome underbear the sky, 
Not so ye humble the City of the Dead ! 

Pillar in pomp serene, palace in Babel sheen, 

Spire over forest seen, bow the brave head ; 

Thou, patient home of ours, league of all warring powers. 
Come, as we near thee, uplift thy portal gray ! 

Fire shall not blast thy halls, foe never pierce thy walls, 
Time nor Eternity wear thee away. 



w 



THE CLIFF AND THE CATARACT 

Upon the mountain's robe of folded rock, 
Intends Eternity ; as one in doubt. 
He tries his pulseless hand, age in and out. 

If there he can work change, or will it mock, 



Ill 

Alone of earthly things, his patient skill ? 
Where all is fleeting, there for once is rest ; 
The very stars come over it and go ; 
Man's thunder-car, that flashes all and shuts, 
Each instant reeling what its follower cuts. 

Yet hour on hour will fix to sight that crest; 
Here anchored, wandering eye and soul are still ; 
And mortal walk, by access hard and slow, 
There pausing, not on earth such peace may know. 

And at its hem, behold the water's toil ! 

Steep from above the whitening arches bound ; 
Deep from beneath the wrestling torrents boil ; 
The oval smooths one moment grown are gone, 

To witness calm that never shall remain ; 
The flowers of foam have spring and fall in one ; 

There storm shall be, when all is stillness round ; 
The roar importunate calls ocean dumb; 

And all those ages may attend in vain, 
A breath of silence on the strife to come. 

And. these are one; the mountain framed the fall. 
The fall, through those vast leisures, carved the steep. 
One was a torrent once, fire-seething deep, 
The other, a sierra of the sky. 
Let faithful child ancestral form recall ; 

Yet birth is contrast, and the farthest nigh. 



w 



COMPETITIVE. 

Befoke the time of our griefs and joys, 
When Chaos and Cosmos both were boys, 

Born of the unknown Vast, 
They started forth on a walk one day, 
Emulous each for a high display ; 

And to trial they came at last. 



112 

For the Protozoans, who bustled then, 
And in many a doing were much like men, 

Were planning to build a mill ; 
But their scheme proved only primeval gas, 
Till they saw the mighty brethren pass. 

And prayed of their power and skill. 

Then Cosmos thought, "I am eldest born, 
I am Father's heir, and I think it scorn 

To take an advantage base; 
For I am beauty, and law, and use, 
Though he looks bigger for dressing loose, 

And covering far more space. 

" Let both of us bear an even hand ; " 
So all were given to understand. 

That the two in the task would vie ; 
And the test, none other they knew, would be, 
Whose part more sponges would stop to see, 

And with more admiring eye. 

Now Cosmos bent on the living work. 
No rest would suffer, no pain would shirk. 

While Chaos went whistling round ; 
A finger he some time thrust within. 
And stirred confusion, and waked a din ; 

But all on the whole grew sound. 

For Chaos had so much else to do, 
Roaming the limitless country through, 

That ere he had shaped a plot, 
The wonderful structure, bright from far, 
The image of ordered sun and star. 

Had crowned the elected spot. 

And the microbes passing, by twos and threes, 
Wagged sentence, that likely the work would please, 

And the architect succeed : 
Though points were open to some for blame, 
It was mostly voted a goodly frame, 

And a few extolled, indeed. 



113 

Then Chaos muttered, "Am I forgot? 
I'll see if I truly can hatch no plot;" 

And before the morning came, 
He had set the workmen on such a broil, 
That in heedless riot, their years of toil 

Went down in an hour of flame. 

By millions, the infusorian throng 
Came pouring, channel and bank along, 

To the heap, grown instant old ; 
Of writhing engine, of shattered spire. 
Wall, clouded black with the blast of fire, 

Half-arch, as it groped for hold. 

Now Chaos, at station as never yet, 
His antic plumage began to jet. 

And shouted, " The game is mine ! 
Now count my crowd, if your reckoning may, 
And the zeal that kindles their numbers weigh ; 

Ho, brother! and where be thine?" 

Sat Cosmos, pondering : " Lost indeed ! 

Who could have thought they would spend such heed 

On work but of waste and woe ? 
Then, since I am heir of our Father's might, 
Remains me nought but to do His right, 

And the people their way must go." 



if 



THE CONFIDANT. 

Where shall we look for faith on earth? 

Kind natures men and women are ; 

They would not wrong us, rob nor mar ; 
Their hearts are all our praises worth ; 
They mean to keep our counsel pure; 

But faithfulness, that need must be 

A fiber of eternity 

Wove through the whirling strands of time, 

Who can that infinite sustain? 



114 



Faith of a moment may be sure, 

But of a moment is not faith ; 
Clay is not made for lofty mould, 
Save but to catch the form, not hold ; 
That flower is of another clime. 

Our lock -wards, rust and wear shall scathe ; 

And where the lock no key may gain ? 
We have no thread so subtly spun, 
But comes at last before the sun. 

One, one I found, to my desire! 

Not gentlest, though his smile was fair ; 
Stern was his touch and dire his eye ; 
His works were mild, were passing grim; 
We w^orshipped, basked and shrank at him ; 

But in his track was purity. 

His nature nought could bend or tire ; 
His tongue could pierce but not ensnare ; 
His seat, like Jahveh's, cloud in air; 

The name we named him. Fire. 
With him the secret laid to rest, 
No more shall babble or molest ; 

Where thy black seal, great Judge, is set. 

Nor fate, nor man, nor demon yet, 
Thy prisoner could restore ! 
I think them scarce to blame of old 
Who wrapped in thine eternal fold 
The frame our soul outwore. 
Not Hercules the wrath can slake 
That arms the fury-headed snake. 
Till more Herculean, thy right hand 
Out-hiss the dragon with its brand. 

The surface every wanderer sweeps. 

Thine are the central, soundless deeps ; 
What foul-grown remnants of disgrace 
Polluted our kind Mother's face 

Till thou the cumbered ground hast cleared. 

And beauty soon for- burning reared ; 
What aches, what madness of the heart. 
Sweet spirits must distract and part. 

O'er poisoned registers of shame. 
Till one smooth of thy balming hand 

Bring peace from beds of flame. 
There faltering never, faith may stand ; 



115 



All wooed her, thou alone hast wed ; 
No heart such trust can hold assured ; 

Not ocean, who shall yield his dead, 
Nor heaven, the tablet of its Lord ; 

Not God-loved Silence knows the power 
To guard like thee her line; 

Her tongueless vigil any hour 
May break, but never thine. 
Some told, on awful Pentecost 

They saw thee, flaming on their prayers, 
With accents of the Holy Ghost ; 

But yet the words were theirs. 
Some, that the wintered world at last, 
A leaf before thy rolling blast. 
Unbound, unbounded Norland wolf, 
Thy universal maw should gulf; 
And how renew the holier age, 

So fair as by that end of all ; 
And on its errors, through thy rage. 

Not vengeance but forgiveness fall ! 



if 



ECLIPSE. 

Clear was the orb in its holy rise, 
Fond was the gaze of earth ; 
And when on its evening couch it lies. 
Its plaintive ray is of tenderer dyes 
Than gloried its festal birth. 

But all the tract of its mid career 

Labored with tyrant shades ; 
Or cloud usurped the resplendent sphere, 
Or beams were shorn by eclipses drear, 
That not for an hour waylaid. 

The rise, the set, and the shade, we know; 

Beautiful is the dawn ; 
What melodies round the cradle flow, 
What minors breathe in the cadence low 

Of steps from the world withdrawn 



116 

Woman in loveliness, man in might, 

Cope of our zenith build ; 
It is but a torch-lit hall of night; 
These ever vaunt and fulfil not quite. 

Those vaunted not and fulfilled. 

So full of promise, earth has not room 

Fairly her pledge to pay. 
The promise of childhood is mortal bloom, 
Immortal promise is of the tomb; 

The promise of prime, decay. 

The babe in an instant clasps us hard, 
In an hour we may win on age ; 
But midway life is a castle guard, 
Now stormed by passion, now half-unbarred 
By treaty of interest sage. 

Not wondrous long is our mortal sight. 

Not eagle-sure of its mark; 
But earthly life is eclipse of light. 
With travail of cloud, and with gleaming bright 

Before and beyond the dark. 

What wonder such a disaster be. 

With a lower sphere between? 
The changeful globe that enchants our sea 
With ebb so flat and with tide so free. 
Is not of the far serene. 

pure, too pure for incarnate thought. 

World of the worlds' desire ! 
End of all seeking, appear unsought, 
No dream go forth of my longing, nought, 

To steal of thy sacred fire. 



W 



117 



EGYPT. 

Land of immortal life, whom death reveres ! 
Which of the empires of primeval years 
Has breath today like thee? who calls thee dead, 
With whom the centuries as with stars have sped ? 

Not as a sun, but cloud, thy form exalts 
Our contemplation ; is it frown or smile ? 

Thy names ring dry, like treads in earthy vaults; 
Clime of enigma, veil and sphinx throughout. 
What stream was mankind's riddle, but thy Nile ? 
Undoubtful thou, but minister of doubt ; 

In vain for thee the Afric sun revolved ; 
The tropic zone, that destines other growth 
To swiftest mouldering, fond o'er thee and loth, 

To earth's warm bosom clasps thee undissolved ; 
Let Israel spurn thee, Hellas filch thy store, 
Thou hast, their pinions all to plume, and more. 
Not as the Gorgon, but Pygmalion's god. 

Stone grows in thee to life; thy faithful crypts 
Pour thought and problem on this latest age; 
Prophet or maniac art thou, fool or sage ? 
In one thing didst thou wake, in thousands nod ; 
For thou didst think, the soul was of its God ; 
The shade alone of Immortality, 

Fall'n from thy genius o'er thy stony scripts, 
Keeps in thy ashes life that cannot die. 



w 



FOREIGN RELATIONS. 

There were two that made a treaty ; it was clear 
and frank in dealing ; 
None was briefer in its terms, and none was 
longer in its term. 
There for once was no chicaning, no amending, 
no repealing ; 
But the two in one concentring, close and firm. 



118 

They were foes and they were strangers, now can 
time nor chance dissever ; 
How is this one league authentic, mid such 
universal sham? 
It is by accord with Nature ; man's devices bind 
it never, 
Like the treaty of the Lion and the Lamb. 



w 



GOLD. 

Not for your lustre, autumn god, 

We chant your tested praise ; 

Dull might you rust as beaten clod. 

And we the hymn would raise, 

If then as now your works were such, 

Your bound as wide, your boon as much. 
And comfort of our days. 

At earliest steps of striving man 

Your treasured shape had birth. 

Nor all his imprescriptive span 

Outwears your reign on earth; 

For you, the bandit idler's spoil. 

Are measure of most holy Toil, 
And all our outer worth. 

The wisdom, that our passage leads. 

Fast hands with you must hold ; 

The goodness, prompt at neighbor needs. 
Must crave you, gracious gold ; 

By you Integrity is known. 

And as we use you, Heaven doth own 
Her key is of your mould. 

How spreads the dark report so wide, 
Your care our soul absorbs ? 

Did you the inward lust provide. 
That nobler aim perturbs? 



119 



Ah, sure the blame was never yours, 
If such a gleam in eyes of ours 
Eclipse the eternal orbs! 

You rather laid the footing dry, 

By which our steps might rise ; 

You did not lift us to the sky, 

But freed us, who were wise ; 

Not where you cleave, but where you leave, 

Like sunbeam richest at its eve, 
Your crown of glory lies. 

if 

GRASSHOPPER'S LAST WORD. 

Your favor is scant. 
Fine mistress Ant, 
To a neighbor and heart- warm friend ; 
As I sang in the harvest, 
" Now dance, ere thou starvest," 
The comfort your mercies lend. 
Your goad is sharp, but it bears no sting ; 
Not yet would I gladlier feed than sing. 

may your hoard, 
In its vaultage stored. 

Suffice you for time to come ! 
What poor acquittance. 
That earth-laid pittance, 
For wingless days and dumb ! 
The frost that has parted my flowers and me, 
Abates my hunger, as even my glee. 

1 am content, 
With the element 

That bred me, to wane and fall ; 
I asked but smiling 
One grain of your piling. 
But you are no host at all. 
What gladness ever has grown on earth 
Of you, what music or glimpse of mirth ? 



120 



But singer and sage, 
From the early age, 
When I answered Anacreon, 
Have tuned their voicings 
To my rejoicings. 
That echo from Tennyson; 
And I to my silence may pass with these, 
Far better than fat me for one dull freeze. 



if 



HEREDITY. 

I COULD follow thee, my father, 
Renew thy life in my youth. 
Some leaves of thy laurels gather. 
Thy wisdom utter, and truth ; 
But the blood of my mother has bent me aside : 
Ah, why would that bridegroom choose that bride ? 

I might have revived, sweet mother. 
Some glimpse of thy fairy face, 
Of thy witchery, like none other, 

Thy wanton and wayward grace ; 
But the mandate relentless, bequeathed of my sire, 
Forbade me thy fantasies, urged aspire. 

What good of my lineage regal 

Unless they could blend their state? 
There is praise of the thrush and the eagle. 
But not if they sought to mate. 
And I halt on my progress, beguiled in my birth, 
By cross of the parentage — Heaven and Earth. 

At the bound of a far horizon 

They clasp them in tranced embrace ; 
But the vale that my own walk lies on, 
Divides them, a starry space. 
As the one cannot rise, can the other descend, 
Till both may recover me, child and friend ? 



121 



LEAF AND LIMB. 

Said we the leaf wore all the airy grace, 
Hard form were trunk and bough ? 

Those dalliers wantoned in the day's embrace, 
With lightfoot dance and vow; 

But, let the twilight find its western place, — 
A corpse of darkness now. 

Then, while in freshness of new life afar, 

November sweeps the grove, 
Pale on the glows that set the evening star, 

One tenderest gauze is wove, 
Of faithful branchlets, that no frost will mar. 

Strong and serene as love. 

w 

APE AUTHOR. 

Mimicking ever with all his might. 

At last he had learned to read and write ; 

And he rested not, till he filled a book. 

With all the views that a monkey took. 

He beckoned a publisher ; all was well ; 

For here was matter assured to sell. 

No need to parcel or blazon it : 

" Lo, here the monkey a book has writ!" 

Was all the booksmith had need to say. 

And buyers and orders thronged the way. 

My neighbor hailed me with lighted look : 

" Old worm, have you read the monkey's book?" 

" I have not; what does the work express? " 

" I do not know, and I cannot guess ; 

And that is the reason we read it so ; 

How can you let such a marvel go ? " 

''But why should I read it, or why should you? 

The monkey's chatter is not so new." 

" But then the monkey has written a book ! 

Is not that more wonderful, if you look. 

Than Shakspeare writing a Hamlet, pray?" 

And I wist him never a word to say. 



122 



MASTER AND SLAVE. 

Unrighteous lot ! shall the one go wide, 
Lord of himself and of souls beside, 
Must valley and hill but gorge his pride, 

All nature attend his good ? 
And the other, in that same image born. 
Live, this man's chattel and all men's scorn. 
Captivity hopeless on earth to moarn ; 

Is this as their Maker would? 

Up, Justice 1 low the usurper lay ; 
Compound with his robbery not one day! 
Tear the false title! And well ye may, 

Were master and slave not one. 
They are but the parts I take by turns; 
Now glorying freedom abounds and spurns. 
Now grovelling bondage wails and yearns; 

In two, it were quickly done. 



w 



MISSION. 

Now while the hour is brightening, now the armor on! 
Joy of the blossoms whitening, of the winter gone ! 
High on the swells of rapture, anchor lift and ride ; 
Souls to redeem from capture, welcome flood of tide ; 
the broad exultation, laboring not for one. 
But for a kindling nation, for new Earth begun ! 
Step to your freedom, brethren, yours be all my blood ; 
Long was the chain untethering, long the barrier stood; 
But in the great deliverance this fresh day proclaims. 
Let ages feel the severance of all our bonds and shames. 
Hail to the mighty day ; 
On, while we may. 



123 

Well do I know the hollow, well the mire and slime, 
That such tide must follow, that its crest shall climb ; 
Well the back recoiling, ghastly ebb and fiat, 
Scorn of all our toiling, owl where eagle sat ; 
Well the dismal wringing, well the wild abuse 
Round our progress clinging, den and cage let loose ; 
Well the grim dominion Victory shall claim, 
When her braggart minion rules but in her name ; 
That in ages after, though our mark attained. 
Shame shall rise and laughter, doubts if aught were gained ; 
That my own sad sentence, ere the day shall fall. 
May be nigh repentance that I moved at all ; 
So clouds the rising day; 
On, while we may. 



w 



MONSTRUM HORRENDUM 

Farewell Titan, Gorgon, Typhon ; 
Follow, ogre, fiend and gryphon ; 

Earth is phantom-free. 
Now no more of Rumor, even. 
In her stature reaching heaven. 

Horrible to see. 

Ear of childhood, be not daunted 
By a region spectre-haunted. 

Slandering gracious night ; 
Soon shall our deliverance threaten 
Very kingdom of old Satan, 

And make all things light. 

Yet a pause ; wide-world inspection, 
Where no shape can bar detection. 

Still one monster finds ; 
And, in wonder stop to scan it. 
Vast it swells to all the planet. 

Though more thin than winds. 



124 



None so armed with goblin terror, 
Scared the dreams of ancient error, 

None so strange of mood ; 
And who once hath bowed before it, 
Thence forever must adore it, 

May it but be wooed. 

Let him jumble wooed and wooer, 
Let him call the ghoul pursuer. 

Let him scorn aloud ; 
All the world will scoff the scoffer. 
All will read, but one more offer 

On that altar proud. 

Yet is this last portent, brothers. 
More at last than all the others? 

Aught but nightmare old. 
Where but sloth has forged the monster ; 
When the man has made but one stir. 

Off the load has rolled? 

Mighty Public! I would dread you. 
Quite as all who fleeched or fled you. 

Once I saw j^ou true : 
But my eyes have never found you; 
Man and woman rose around you, 

Alw^ays hiding you. 

w 

THE NEW FACE. 

In thy doorway, in hall and street, 

Many a stranger thou shalt meet ; 

Smile to them, yield them kind response ; 

Every friend wa.s a stranger once. 

One shall be but a leaf that fleets, 

One, a flower exhaling sweets, 

One a branch that thy stem completes ; 

One was lovely, a void within ; 

Lead-cased other, but gold to win. 



125 



Sooner or later, in home or street, 
One, of thy destiny, thou shalt meet ; 
Hardly the feature thou shalt know, 
Neither action, of friend or foe. 
Didst not learn but the very name, 
When that strange of all strangers came ; 
But, ere long it shall delve thy heart : 
Life has met thee, no more to part. 
Ah, what casual time and place 
Brought thee near to the sure embrace ! 
Oft shall thy questioning spirit gasp, 
" Lover, or serpent, dealt that clasp ? " 
Sink thee not in these dire unrests ; 
This was even as other guests : 
Greet him gently, with forward mind; 
He will shape to thee, by thy kind. 



w 



NEW FRIENDS. 

Boy, free-footed as windcloud o'er him, 
Never a hand be on his to guide ! 

Quavering counsel, avaunt before him ; 

Not in old cords be the young soul tied 

Yet at the flush of his lordly state, 

Want shall he feel, in a soothfast mate. 

Unit years to their tens shall gather, 
Mastery widen, of world and mind. 

Then were he arbiter, now far rather ; 

What is there freer that eye can find ? 

Yet shall the pulse of his manly pride 

Surge but' anguish, for clasp of bride. 

Space like the other his season passes ; 

Eyes, that have darted afar and near. 
Grope for the lead of their piteous glasses ; 

Earth takes veil, though the heaven be clear 
How to that alms could his proud sense bend! 
Now has he found it but one more friend. 



120 

More doth he need not the vivid glances, 

Searching the world, by the world enchained ; 

Richer the gifts of his calm advances; 

Wizard Science the wand has gained; 

Light in the darkness her spells restore, 

Pledge of recovery evermore. 

Hours as many their strokes have sounded; 

Autumn of life hath its harvest gleaned. 
Reverend crown hath his temples rounded ; 

Sure he shall stand, where he once hath leaned 
Ah, he may walk not, or stand, but half; 
Nothing so near, as his faithful staff. 

Many the aches and the wants assail him. 
All that was brightness is falling dim ; 

All that was comfort, henceforth may fail him ; 
Never the forest shall fail a limb. 

Past all storm is a far serene, 

Something forever whereon to lean. 

Yet shall a newer and nearer find him, 

Framed to his stature, and square and still. 

Longer than all its embrace shall bind him. 
Say the voices that world-ears fill : 

Friendship in fulness at last shall be : 

Firmest of earthbond, soul most free. 



w 



OFFICE AND MERIT. 

I SAW a good man, who the world surveyed. 

And all the creatures and their works he weighed. 

He thought the frame of things was mainly well; 

But on the Lion his observance fell. 

And, as he marked the champion's royal mien, 

And next, the Monkey on his bough was seen, 

"Ah, pity of my soul," bewailed the man, 

" That sovereign climbs not as this vermin can ! " 



127 



THE PASSING OF POESY. 

Thou and I must leave the world, they tell me ; 

For if thou retire thee, I am not ; 
Accident thenceforth may buy or sell me, 
Earth for me will bear no lot. 

Every nation sings awhile, then reasons; 

And the chanting falls to level speech. 
Flower and warbler have their early seasons; 
Riper hour shall wiser teach. 

Now the world is all one people growing ; 
Now their ancient melodies are past. 
One by one we saw them in their blowing ; 
We have seen the last. 

Utterance now shall drop the faded glitter 
Useless numbers bind on infant feet ; 
Dante shall not prattle, Shakspeare twitter, 
In the time complete. 

Well ; and if the world can do without us, 
We may do without the world as well. 
Let us wrap the minstrel robes about us. 
In our own dominion dwell. 

But a many springs have bloomed and faded ; 
Yet old Earth had ever one more spring. 
Amaranth will blossom, sunned or shaded ; 

Youth shall rise, and youth will sing. 

When the stars in measure cease their dances, 
When the days no more by number flow. 
And when Love shall end her rhyme of glances, 
Thou and I may go. 



W 



128 



PENTHOLATHY. 

"I JOY to see you," one I knew 

Hailed one that entering came; 

"What all this year has been with you? 
I almost lose your name." 

It was a dear good soul that spoke; 

He loved his neighbor, and his joke; 

I could have liked him, heart of oak! 
But dulness was his blame. 

The Stranger was of rarer mould : 

A poet, every gleam ; 
No sordid mark his glance controlled; 

His being was a dream. 
The clustered locks his shoulder swept; 
His voice and hand such measure kept 
As frenzy in her buskin stept; 

Or wine the muse might seem. 

The speeding train a thousand scenes 

Into one action crushed. 
Where hills and rivers, streets and greens 

In fierce procession rushed; 
In vain they wooed regard of mine ; 
That stress alone compelled my eyne; 
That discord of the rude and fine. 

All other j anglings hushed. 

"I am as ever," was replied, 

"The first of Sorrow's train." 

"Has any of your kinfolk died?" 
Pursued the inquirer vain. 

"Death? what is earth, but his grim lair?" 

Rejoined the minstrel of despair; 

"Why ask of one, who enters there, 
Where all pour on amain?" 

" But yet methinks enough are live," 
Inferred my stolid friend, 
" To keep us company who survive. 
And cheer us to our end." 



129 

"What call ye cheer?" bemoaned the bard, 
"On life's dark voyage evil-starred? 
Where is your comfort or reward 

For love and pains ye spend?" 

"A many comforts," once again 

He said, " I am sure we find ; 
And joy, I think, outpoises pain. 

If all were of my mind." 
"Joy, where?" the seer of grief required ; 
"And were your spirits with vision fired, 
Ye would find the good ye have all desired 

But the bloom to a bitter rind. 

" For of all your earthly millions, tell 

Of but one with happy lot! 
When ye sing it of children, ye know well 

It is but that your own are not. 
Or is mirth, or humor, exceeding fair ? 
Is your Swift a blessedness, or Voltaire, 
For all the laughter and wit they flare. 

Or but misery ? well ye wot. 

" And he of the shallow Pickwick sports. 

Do ye deem that his grin was cheer? 

But follow him where his heart resorts. 
And sorrow is ever near. 

His quips, if ye knew, are of suffering bought ; 

Our brightest frolic with pain is fraught ; 

For wath travail forth are my own jests brought. 
And sadness to those who hear. 

" The harp of Nature is tuned to woe. 

With but minor and major strings; 

And love is pang, and fruition show. 

As the whole of my chorus sings. 

All pleasure bleeds at its fullest vein. 

But of bestial sort, and that were stain ; 

The song of birds is their cry of pain. 

Sore toil on their throbbing wings. 

" Ye fancy the flit and the chirp are gay, 
For the figure of glee they fill ; 
But the keys in torture as quickly play 
As ever delight could thrill. 



130 

The cricket squeals as a thing in gripe, 
Like moaning sickness the midges pipe ; 
Yet sadder the wave-tribes, woe's own type, 
Who voiceless endure their ill. 

"In the sighing forest, the tear-hung flower, 
Lies chambered a dumb regret ; 

And the shore and sea, and the wind and shower, 
To the same sad strain are set. 

If our ears could reach it, the orbs above 

To a mourning cadence their progress move ; 

And I hear that in Heaven's own light and love, 
We shall wear our sorrows yet." 

He spake, and the other nodded, once 
And again, to the purport deep ; 

I hearkened, and hoped the brave response, 
Or I must apart and weep ; 

For an ice on my heart had crept the while ; 

But never an answer, frown or smile. 

Of the comrade tokened, who many a mile, 
From Sorrow appealed to Sleep. 



w 



THE RADICAL. 

We are out for the newest of all the new ; 

It is not to change a law. 
It is not to abolish a wrong or two, 

Nor to hold a power in awe; 
Mere turning ourselves in the bed we heat. 
But never making it, fresh and sweet. 

We have heard so much of the world's reform. 
If a paper were only sealed, 

If only a poll we could take by storm. 

If a trade were barred the field. 

We begin to tire of the cure-all stuff. 

And doubt if the measures have depth enough. 



331 

We will found a party, that never yet 

Solicited human vote; 
Who will think on the good before them set, 

Not dream on the good remote; 
To whom old Earth is so kind a mother. 
They tend her rather, than scheme another. 

For we are the bold reformers, we. 

Who would keep the slow world's gain; 
Who find it a glorious thing to be, 

And the ages not in vain ; 
Who love the law and who like the rule; 
Who call not our abler, knave or fool. 

We would lead the erring, the wounded heal, 
We would lend the poor a hand. 

We would purge the stains of the Commonweal 
To a new-found Holy Land; 

And these when we gird ourselves to do. 

We look, what means have been tested true. 

So deep to the roots of the ill we go. 
We never could search afar, 

To find in another field the foe. 

Who will keep us in holy war; 

It is such a world, we are hardly sure 

Of malady save in ourselves to cure. 



w 



KAILWAY. 

Out doors, and forward through the dawn; 
This morning he shall gather flowers;. 
There's labor for the after hours; 
But first his access shall be drawn 
By many a grove and bending lawn, 

Ere Duty's silent call; 
And he shall fill his sense with sweets, 
As budding life the infant greets 

Before the brow-drops fall. 



132 



There sit they, looking forth like love, 

And like love wooing to be plucked ; 
Expanding wide the green above. 

Or lifting, half-untucked. 
Arbutus, wild-rose, wintergreen. 
Our columned poplar, forest queen ; 
Gentian, with tint of maiden's cheek. 
Azalea, chestnut's fountain bloom; 
Warm cardinal, mirrored in the creek. 
And frolic bluecurls' musky breath : 
For all the seasons twine one wreath, 
And melt in one perfume, 
All climes, about this haunted way. 

Still these our wanderer culls, the while 
Sweet Earth's and Heaven's attending smile 
With their seolian accents, heard 
In voiceful gale and happy bird, 

Attune him to the gracious play. 
Nor all for idleness the store ; 
Some, stranger-faced, he shall explore. 
And some perhaps he shall enshrine 
Above a heart he deems divine. 
But now the pilgrim takes his heed: 

The sun is white and strong aloft ; 
Not to his post these footpaths lead. 
Nor carriage, waiting at his need, 

Nor pony ambling soft ; 
The iron chariot, planet-swift. 
And planet-strict to time and course 
He must attend, or all adrift. 
The day confounded, and much worse. 
But rue the morning's dreamy gift. 
He scans the hour; too near, too far! 
Already thunder brews at hand; 
The blossoms griped with bruise and scar. 
Forth-right he bounds across the land. 
All action now resolved in speed; 
Fades landscape hue and heavenly blue ; 
And, all the levied breath devoured 
By nerves on torture overpowered. 
Fast ebbs the force so needful now; 
Over he strains the last hill-brow; 



133 



The engine blazes into sight, — 
Yet direr then the sickening fright; 
Now scaling, plunging, fence and ditch, 
For use of hands the garlands drop, 
For them one thought, for them no stop 
Sharp there the champing dragon hisses, 
The goal his life-throe gains, or misses; 
Nought to the lay it matters which. 

brazen monster bellowing by. 

Art thou indeed our century? 

To meet thee at thy grim demands, 

Must freshness wither from our hands ? 

Must all the hue and bloom of life 

Fall wan and trampled in the strife? 

Thy earthquake murmur through the night, 

Is like no sound of earthly wight. 

Roar on; but Nature's feet were born 

Before thee, and are not outworn. 

The hippogriff my use shall hire. 

To bear me on his wings of fire, 

But as my vassal, not my lord; 

For who but he could space afford . 

The toiler, for his morning hours 

So far afield to gather flowers? 



w 



THE RAPE OF VIRTUE. 

Loose-hearted Ovid yet could find, 
"Virtue is female, and she likes her kind." 

But that most fair of maidhood pure, - 
Must woman's perils and assaults endure. 

Man in his bruteship violates 
Virtue herself as her defenceless mates. 

When comes the unhallowed seed to birth, 
One more Fanatic has maligned his earth. 



134 



EESPECTS TO PATRONS ABROAD. 

It" HAS moved us, never deeper, that you drop an eye sometimes 
On our crude essays at letters, thin romances, creeping rhymes; 
That you found some faint deserving in our generations past, 
From a Cooper and an Irving, to — whoever be the last. 

And we mark one admonition, in your kindliest phrase of cheer. 
That we ought to stamp the colors of our country firmer here; 
Shall we stand for life your clients, and your fixed approval find, 
Heed our Whitmans, Brets and Bryants, with their voice of western wind. 

Never European models, not the beautiful abstract. 

Be the fountain of our pages, but the Occidental fact. 

And we hearken, grateful-eager, for where praise except our own, 

Heretofore had been so meagre, any footstool is a throne. 

Only, if to stop and reason may beseem a western man, 

Will you tell us of your meaning in that name American f 

Is it wilds, where travel loses track and order, breath and bound ?^ 

Surely Atlases, not Muses, will be vouchers faithful found. 

Is it race, with trait distinctive, we should render in our rede? 

No Columbian race but Redskin, and of him there's more than need. 

If it be the urging Saxon, with his medley of all bloods. 

Then yourselves you turn your backs on, hunting newness in our woods. 

In your best of work, your fashions and your landscapes have we seen? 

What of England is in Hamlet, Paradise or Fairy Queen ? 

If the Britonship is surer in the purpose and the tone. 

Then I think our teaching purer than the average of your own. 

We can fix no wall of severance from our neighbors, though we strive ; 
And our scanted navies witness that our hatreds cannot live. 
If an individual mission to our clime has been assigned, 
It is not to hold partition, but to raze it from mankind. 

And when spear and sword and armor, sighted tube and sightless ball, 
Spread the last regale of bloodthirst, and the battle-standards fall, 
Then will shame upbraid the nation that hath raised its hymn of joy 
On the anguish of its brother-land, the glory to destroy. 



135 

Then the praise of deeds immortal shall not end, but first begin, 
With the psean of the Muses rising purified of sin. 
For the lyre shall find its hero where the sufferer finds his aid, 
And one spirit through all peoples rise in poet-forms arrayed. 

And in these if we shall prosper, as of chance and right we may. 
We are called as well as others, and a choicer call than they ; 
There is Rome indeed eternal, welding all the world in one, 
But the Rome without the empire, blessing all beneath the sun. 

Let us then achieve what beauty and what works of light we can ; 
Lead the race, and little query, New-world born or Englishman. 
For the stamp of native pressure deep enough is sure to cleave ; 
And the less it bind us earthward, all the nobler track we leave. 



w 



SEARCH FOR THE WORLD. 

Soft in his chair the learner sat; 

He said, " The world is beautiful ; 
I wonder what they would be at. 

Who call it dark and dull ? " 
Replied the master, " Thou shalt see ; 
The world thou knowest not ; follow me." 

The guide his tender listener led 

Where hideous rags half-clothed a folk 
Who sacked the dust, and moaned for bread ; 

And thence his moral spoke: 
" Is this thy world of beauty ? " " No ; 
Lead on, the world explore and show." 

He led where murder aimed his thrust, 

Where tyrant power the mild oppressed, 
Where grief bewailed, where wallowed lust, 

Where sickness prayed to Rest ; 
"And has thou thought on these?" he hurled. 
" I see them ; let me see the world." 



136 

When all his discord, pain and crime 

He taught, and still his charge would stray, 
He came to ruins more sublime : 
A battle-field next day ; 
A ravaged land, a famined town ; 
A plague, that mankind rotted down. 

" Now cast thy vision round, and tell ; 

Thou seest the world ; so very fair ? " 
" What have I seen? it may be hell; 

The world, I know not there. 
Gleams I have seen, but not from thee; 
My world, may none reveal but me." 



SHADOW MARKET. 

You the story doubtless know, 
Handed on from Chamisso : 
If the stranger, peaked and famined, 
(Toe or temple not examined,) 
Beg you, with astounding price, 
Thing so idle and so nice. 
You have never used it yet. 
Should the offer not be met ? 
Is not this the soul of trade, 
Profit on both parties made ? 
So you get the bin of gold, 
He your shadow, soft-uprolled. 
Where can any damage be? 
Are you not one shade more free? 
Only, you have no more place 
In the walks of human race. 
Men can bear with cloudiest blot ; 
Man without a shadow, not. 
All the sad result I waive ; 
Too much freedom sealed the slave. 

glory of modern time far-sought, 
cradle of all my nursling thought, 



137 

Period of tyranny, murk and schism, 

Hope of the ages, Liberalism ! 

We craved you long, and we have you now ; 

Yours is the guidance; and where, and how? 

Once there had risen a worshipped light; 

Never such orb looked forth from night; 

While it was low on its azure way. 

Long the portentous shadows lay ; 
Persecution, and Superstition, 
Hell, and its forecourt Inquisition, 
Too shadowy lest that darkness be ; 
Science fettered, and priestcraft free ; 

By every bar, the rigid glooms 
Drawn to one giant form attest, 

What sun of righteousness illumes. 

What substance there the stamp hath pressed. 

Now, line by line of the umbered ground 

In our light diffused no more is found ; 

And all mankind is at large, we hold. 

And cheap for dear is our shadow sold. 

What good of the horrid spectre? Nay, 

All yield, that the ill we scarce can say ; 

Then roll it forth, and the riches leave ; 

May never the balance, I pray, deceive. 



w 



THE SPY. 

I HAVE often, in my learnings, 
In my unaccounted turnings. 
Peered within the deep concernings 

Of my fellow-minds ; 
But the utmost of my labors 
In the vineyard of my neighbors, 
Never brought me home the gleaning 

Self-detection finds. 



138 



If the choicest bits of scandal 
You would most securely handle, 
If the sport shall pay the candle, 

Cast a glance within ; 
There, what years of overweening 
Tumble, in a thought's unscreening, 
How much sought afar shall meet you, 

Folly, fear, and sin ! 

Yet not only pits of darkness. 
Skeletons in wary starkness. 
Doubt's impenetrahle murkness. 

Fill the vessel dim ; 
Many a glimpse therein shall greet you. 
Many a guest who may entreat you. 
Whose long night has burst in morning, 

To an hour with him. 

There what captive shapes unnumbered, 
Whose retreat has closed and slumbered, 
Under adding years encumbered, 

Wait the signal wand ; 
Then, unreckoned and unwarning. 
These in beauty's own adorning. 
These with nightmare horror stricken, 

Forth erect they stand. 

From the trackless-wandering spirit. 
From the myriad breaths that stir it. 
From the bloodkins we inherit 

Through our million sires. 
Who can say what records thicken. 
Watching when the lamp shall quicken 
All the worst and all the best there. 

By unquenching fires ! 

All the world and all its riches 
There may brood in vaulted niches, 
Till the word of mystery witches 

Each from secret shelf; 
All the universe may nest there ; 
Pry not for it, let it rest there. 

Till it rouse itself! 



139 



TKANSIENT AND PERMANENT. 

The old tune of Scotland, the Bonnie Dundee, 
As I walked to my love-lot, went crooning with me ; 
For the red fruit had ripened, the bloom was no more, 
I must know of my fate ere the twilight be o'er. 

But my true-love was false-love, she would not of me ; 
For the joy of another she flouted my plea ; 
And the stem of six years in one moment was bare; 
Then I turned, and I wandered ; and hummed the old air. 

And my chamber embraced me, with rest as it might ; 
And I rose on the morning, and fronted the light; 
I had stepped from my bondage, up, forward and free ; 
And there murmured within me the Bonnie Dundee. 



A TRUANT. 

A SERAPH, whom God on his errand sent. 
Found way to this world of ours. 

And in arbors of dalliance roving went, 

And wreathed him in rainbow flowers. 

With a voice as of Love, and a swooning flute, 
He gathered a languorous throng. 

And he warbled of heaven, its gold and fruit, 
Its palaces, robes and song. 

Till the shadows approaching, alarmed him home ; 

And he bent on his task at last ; 
But his way was lost. From his fruitless roam, 

He returned ; and the Gates were fast. 

"0 poet who singest of poets," replied 

The Voice that had charged him forth, 
" Thy freedom may wander these walls outside ; 
Thou art neither for heaven nor earth." 



140 



THE WARFARE. 

I AM armored fast, I ana sworded bright, 

My pulses with valor flow ; 
I am forth to wage the holy fight; 

But where shall I find my foe? 

As a child I knew him, the Wicked Man; 

For the good were to gather deep. 
And smite these wicked, and mar their plan, 

And so the enlistment keep. 

But I came of age, and I looked abroad, 
And I found not the wicked one ; 

There were many who did the deed unlawed, 
But soul that was evil, none. 

My glance I lifted a pitch more high. 

And a deeper sounding cast ; 
And I said, " My foe is the sacred lie, 

That leads us, from ages past. 

"The false tradition, the church inert. 
The bigot and dogma cursed. 
That make the Christian his name desert, 
Yes, there let my hatred burst." 

And the more I searched of my creed-bound foe, 

As I came to nearer view. 
And the further of life I attained to know, 

I found he had reason too. 

And so ill I had heard his mystic word. 

As my rueful wonder moved ; 
Dark Superstition I once averred 

What shadow of godhead proved. 

And less and less, as I felt the shade 

Of that rock in the weary land. 
Could I make a foeman of whom God made 

My brother, and own right hand. 



141 

And I turned with zeal of converted mind, 

On the rest who arrayed that war, 
And I said, " These wilder fanatics blind 

Are the foes more deadly far. 

" For they ruin down the house of life, 
Unrecking the waste they do. 
And where all is peace they bring but strife, 
For Truth whom they never knew." 

But I wist not the strength of that ancient pile ; 

And how should my hostile be. 
Who went but the way I had gone erewhile ; 

If I gained of it, why not he ? 

Assuredly rather as friend than foe. 

At least were his chance to gain ; 
And I looked once more beyond, to know 

If enemy yet remain. 

" There is one," I cried, " who at least and last, 
Defies the appeal of soul ; 
The prophet of matter, who, mind out-cast, 
Finds atom and stress the whole. 

" He only has swept us of spirit clean, 
Of God and of holy law ; 
And nothing from vengeance that heart shall screen, 
Whom nothing can hold in awe." 

But I saw, that he reckoned of mind as clear, 

Or more, that he stood without; 
And his Matter widened, and filled the sphere. 

Till it brought my vaunts in doubt. 

If I could but have found that the man was bad, 

For his badness of doctrine, well ; 
But morals un shamed of mine he had, 

And my throne of judgment fell. 

There might be one or another traced. 
Right godless, and scoffer dark ; 



142 

But SO light his lance, that I found it waste 
To make him a gory mark. 

Where then of the world shall I find the foe, 

Who may justify these arms? 
Appear, and teach me ; the sun is low. 

That the heart of prowess warms ! 

'' Hast thou searched him everywhere, indeed? 
No corner hast left unspied? 
In thy own dark heart hast thou bent thy heed, 
If thy quarry there may hide ? " 

Oh Wisdom, surely you late begin 

The counsel approved so long! 
The rule of the spirit, the foes within. 

Are matters of olden song. 

But because the first and the fiercest strife 

Is there to be lost or gained. 
You would scarce pronounce me, that all my life, 

No struggle beside remained? — 

" There is time of battle, and time of drill ; 
And the longer task is this. 
While an inward ill remains to kill, 
Thy practice is not amiss." 

True, mighty Keason ; thy law is right. 

And by that same lamp I go ; 
Ev'n thus will I wage the holy fight ; 

But still I require my foe. 

For I wot full surely a Devil is, 

And the home of a devil. Hell ; 
And the dues of my battle-toil are his, 

And the very strife is well. 



143 

YESTERDAY. 

How tender was the step, fair day, 
You stole upon my parting rest! 
How sweet the hand you sought to lay, 
I thought I could not but obey, — 
"Now for our best!" 

Your cheeks were then the climbing rose, 

Your breath the wave of mountain woods. 
Serene and still your voice arose, 
To lull repinings in repose, 
And vanquish moods. 

What things with you I might have wrought. 

What hours of love we might have worn! 
Now, like an unaccomplished thought, 
Relapsing to despair and nought. 
You pass forlorn. 



W 



HOME. 



147 



THE ARBITER. 



The sundering sword, or the joining pen ; 

The quelling flash, or the quickening ray ; 
The whirlwind brool, or the tramp of men ; 

What is the wand of the surest sway? 

The ocean smites, and the oak gives way ; 
The fire engirds, and the tower must fall; 

The flag unbosoms, and cowards bray ; 
But I know of a spell more swift than all. 

Before our April, before yet March 
The sun had pitted against the wind. 

Where cedar shelters and coverts arch, 
In a bed no search of the frost could find. 
My weird awaited, with face declined; 

My violet, mine to be, not now. 

With cheeks already how tender-lined, 

With breath already a mystic vow. 

O saint-like sweetness, through all the hours 

You had there in the cold to meditate, 
Did you never omen, of all the flowers 

How far the highest would be your state ? 

Did you feel, one token, for what you wait? 
A happier bloom than you even seemed. 

You must have grown, with your matchless fate; 
A hue yet dearer upon you gleamed. 

The violet, forth of its leafless nook. 

My love had plucked, and upraised the face, 
As a mirror, far in its deep to look. 

Till the two souls mingle, the breaths embrace ; 

Then passed, where I sat in my wintered place. 
And cast me the floweret, a wave so slight 

It scarcely could utter her stately grace; 
And onward, leading her path of light. 



148 

The grim war-engine they prove, how deep 

Its bolt ^ill auger the plated shield : 
Who tests, withinward how far will creep 

The violet, first from the naked field? 

The keyless vaults of the heart unsealed 
At the odorous touch, look forth on air; 

The graves of passion their tenance yield ; 
The spirit steals what the thought would spare. 

It was long I had fasted of smile or word, 

Full sore had I pined the season through ; 
Love, memory, hope, in the wafture stirred. 

And their spring at a bound to the summer grew. 

cloistered maiden, perchance ye knew 
That your flower had borne of your heart along? 

violet, violet, pale and true, 
The meek inherit before the strong ! 



w 



THE LOST LOVE. 

Death has come bridegroom unto many a bride. 
And spousal to the groom ; 

No rivalry could wrest that suit aside. 
No plea refrain the doom. 

The will of power, the power of will, have thrust 
Their bars across Love's road ; 

The rigid mandate, and the wayward gust. 
His May-tide harvest mowed. 

Chance may have warped the plighted souls apart, 

Till earthly access closed ; 
Some crossing witch-light may have wiled a heart 

From where its home reposed. 

Despair of answer has one mind possessed, 
Till 'surance came too late ; 

The lawful bond has one too soon oppressed, 
Ere toucht the spirit's mate. 



149 

But thou, poor comrade ! what a dole was thine, 
Whom fortune, unforborne, 

Led to the harbor of thy placid shrine. 

And left no wrecks to mourn ; 

Laid all the pathway level to thy feet, 

The sweet goal there in view ; 

And ev'n because the love was smooth and sweet. 
Thou didst not find it true ! 

The doors that never did thy entrance bar, 
The talk that never failed, 

The step that shrank not from thy side afar, 
Was it that these had staled? 

There was no hour the cycles bore thee then, 
More fitly sphered than this ; 

Now, in thine age, dim records risen again. 
First shall thou know the bliss ? 

There all was ease, response and soft accord, 
When thou to her didst come ; 

There was she lady, and thou there wast lord, 
Thine was her nested home ; 

The lowliest hap that common living chanced. 
Took brightness in your word, 

The loftiest oracle thy soul advanced, 

Found answer when she heard. 

Yet sudden meeting was a subtle start 

Throughout her elfin frame ; 

Thy outward image, that within her heart 
Met like the electric flame. 

One house enfolding, ye were all at one. 
And all the world was yours ; 

A faint disorder must her currents run, 
Encountering out of doors ! 

That dainty stammer, could it never teach 
What secret languor stole : 

Which was no fetter of the strings of speech, 
But flutter of the soul ? 



150 



She who no ardors uttered nor concealed, 
Whose converse now alone 

Was ev'n as wedlock had the sanction sealed, 
Not she thy truest one ? 

But rainbow glamors had thy sense beguiled, 
From thine apparent good ; 

The very joy in which thy season smiled, 
Thy wit false-understood. 

crown of wisdom ! who didst all things know. 
Of all the worlds, but Life ; 

Well mightst thou gather all the fruits below 
Of Love, but home and wife. 



if 



HER RECLAMATION. 

Oh, it was not on you that my anger leapt, 

Poor lover who never loved ; 
I could scarce have wept, I had rather slept. 

On all that your idlesse moved. 

It was only my lot, which was dull, God wot, 
That wrested my patience out ; 

I had looked for a man, and I found him not 
And whether he lives, I doubt. 

Yourself, fancy not I despise ; 

I always have liked you well ; 
And I never could prize at the rate of lies 

The fables you used to tell. 

But I only thought, in those days untaught. 
What a noble man might be ; 

And never, assure you, on me you wrought, 
But to question, if you were he. 



151 

Your subtleties wove a luring bower, 

Whose odors awhile I drank ; 
Till there came the hour, that beyond my power, 

Like trance on my spirit sank. 

Not words of might, nor your touches light, 
But my weakness made my pain ; 

I pondered, were this my hero-knight; — 
Heaven, almost as weak again? 

coward, white-heart, boneless knave. 

To kindle, and leave aglow! 
Do you think it so brave, a torch to wave, 

And cast it where fire must grow ? 

But remember me true, I blame not you ; 

I had but a dream, and woke. 
You never had done me harm, I knew ; 

Consider not what I spoke. 



THE FULNESS OF DAYS. 

Threescore years and ten. 
The musing Psalmist laid the perfect span; 

And well it might be then, 

After those eldest men, 
A seemly measure for declining man. 

Science, our Scripture now, 
Looks forth at large upon the teeming race. 

And gleaning every bough, 

Finds she can scarce allow 
To each frail generation half that space. 

But I have looked and seen 

Through mist and darkness yet a nearer bound; 
The bud of tenderest green. 
Where soil nor storm has been. 

Alone with glory of perfection crowned. 



152 

Whose work is so complete 
As theirs who strayed not from their mother's breast ? 

Of whom is love so sweet, 

For whom applause so meet, 
As that soft sinless infant at its rest? 

garden of delight. 
Whose flower has sunken in the scarlet plague. 

Not there the weary blight. 

Of nerve and heart and sight. 
From long disaster and repining vague ; 

But leaning at the gate. 
Where that blest visitation has withdrawn, 

So little and so great. 

There best we learn our state. 
There sound our deepest dark, and trace the dawn. 



w 



FAKMER'S BORDERLAND 



The bars were nothing brave or strange, that parted our 

meadow from neighbor's field ; 
They slipped, they stayed, without a change from the bars 

that ever the yeomen wield ; 
The staggering posts with ages cracked, the mortises wider 

and smoother wore, 
The slide-rails warped and sagged and slacked, with the 

sliding and sitting, more and more. 
The growth grew slowly to decay, and slowly grew the decay 

to growth. 
Like every other mortal way^ in the kingdom of man and of 

Nature both ; 
The moss o'erturfed the bevilled scarp, the ant and the beetle 

were in and out. 
Till not an edge was bright or sharp, and all was at one with 

the soil about. 



153 

But not as other bars of old, far less the newer, unmoved they 

stand, 
In image that can never mould ; for they were portals of 

fairy -land. 
What climes of fancy stretched beyond, that tempted our infant 

thought and feet! 
And dreaming, still more soft and fond, yet followed in after 

season sweet. 
When childhood's misted wonderings fade, there seems a glory 

to pass from earth ; 
Yet few more springs shall weave their shade, till fairier 

charming have come to birth. 
The neighbor's realm was haunted space, as never the baby 

glance had awed. 
When answering gleam of neighbor face in maiden blossom 

had looked abroad. 
For there I ween the ancient bars have many a meeting and 

parting marked, 
And nimbler sped the gliding spars, than when the cattle and 

swine we harked ; 
What lingering on the mouldered bound, what lasting of last 

words sighed and sworn ! 
The hairy flanks that rubbed them round, had never like us 

the timbers worn. 

Now many a year the bars are gone, the fields and the fences 
are all new-laid ; 

How rise they on my thought alone, and blot the record this 
year has made? 

No more the gates of elfin-range, those barriers open henceforth 
and close ; 

But passing changeless in their change, themselves in the 
ghostly trance repose. 

Ah, deeplier still in fairy-land old age has entered, than child- 
hood or youth ; 

Nought of my hourly work may stand, while all I have 
dreamed and lost is truth. 



W 



154 



FAMILY PICTURE. 

Stands there not ever, tho' ire hath striven, 

Tho' tempests have all the household riven, 

A form and vision at rest with each, 

Of home-content that no storm can reach ; 

Not concord only that might have been, 

But sometime here in our dwelling seen? 

It is woven of sunny hours, though few, 

When happy children each other knew, 

When their warbling hearts on each other poured, 

And parent was eldest mate, not lord ; 

It lives in a lustre of summer morns, 

Where the basking beam on the porch returns, 

That the honeysuckle was mantling then. 

Where breathed the lilac, and sang the wren ; 

The younger honored the older there, 

The elder answered in tender care : 

A far-off bliss that can never change, 

No time can wear it, nor chance estrange, 

Deep-set in the haunted border-tract 

Of golden fancy and earthen fact ; 

Oh brother, oh sister, how'er it chide, 

Seek not that image of peace to hide ! 

Even alike is the dream of old, 
Long dowering man with an age of gold ; 
All there were brethren, and all was peace ; 
Faint the attesting, and brief the lease ; 
Yet still as the rainbow above the storm, 
Unmarred forever it moulded form. 
And when in the past it had drawn too far, 
The setting turned to the rising star; 
Should that fraternity never be, 
Another world than our own would see. 
How frail the witness, in things of sense, 
Such faith to warrant, such hope immense ! 
Oh brethren, oh sisters, now they say, 
Cast the unprofiting dream away ! 



W 



155 



A TALE OF LOVES. 

Two lovers went by, the earth and the sky; 

Their touches were soft and fond ; 
They murmured and clasped, they circled me nigh, 

They fleeted to realms beyond. 
And I thought as I knew her, that Earth was truer, 

And Sky was a sad coquet ; 
A soothfast maid and a moody wooer, 

But they have not parted yet. 

For many a day there would scarce one ray 

Of grace from his feature shine ; 
But the showers grew flowers where the maiden lay, 

And she counted him still divine ; 
There were tempests rolled, there was iron cold, 

That clouded her cheeks or chilled ; 
But her smile was sweet and serene of old, 

Whenever the blasts were stilled. 

There is, when her lover from far above her, 
Comes down at her side to rest ; 

When the fitful mists that around him hover, 
Are dew on her virgin breast ; 

When at April, showers that in other hours 
• Were brewed of the vault aloft, 

Now gather drops in her very bowers, 

And thence is their fall so soft. 

There is, when the maid from her vale and shade, 

Ascends to her loved one's height ; 
When the clouds once more that in azure played, 

Come round her in damp and light ; 
Her fields are bare in the moteless air. 

And her stem-lost flowers are dim : 
When he came to her, it was pleasant there, 

But nobler, when she to him. 



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